Reasonsforourfaith Nichol

REASONS FOR OUR FAITH
A Discussion of Questions Vital to the Proper Understanding and

Effective Presentation of Certain Seventh-day Adventist Teachings
By
FRANCIS D. NICHOL
REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

Takoma Park, Washington, DC
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Copyright, 1947, By the Review and Herald Publishing Association.
www.maranathamedia.com.au
To the Ministry and the Missionary-minded Laity of the Advent Movement This Book Is Prayerfully
Dedicated
Reasons For Our Faith – F.D Nichol
CONTENTS
From the Author to the Reader of This Book
A. General Topics
1. The Christian Way to Contend for the Faith
2. Don’t Read Into Scripture What Is Not There
3. Seven Reasons for joining the Advent Movement
B. Seventh-day Adventist History

4. The Origin of Seventh-day Adventists in the Setting of Bible Prophecy
5. Should Millerite Time Setting Cause Us Embarrassment?
6. Those Charges of Fanatical Excesses in 1844
7. Charges of Fanaticism in the Years Following 1844
8. The 1844 Disappointment and the “Shut Door”
C. The Second Advent

9. The Second Advent Doctrine in the Creeds
10. Do Adventists Make Any Real Contribution to the Betterment of the World?
11. Has a Century’s Passing Weakened Our Teaching That the Advent Is Near?
D. The Threefold Message in Historical Perspective

12. Origin and Growth of the Idea of World Progress
13. Collapse of the Idea of World Progress
14. The First Angel’s Message
15. The Second Angel’s Message
16. The Third Angel’s Message
E. The Law and the Sabbath

17. The Law of God in Church Creeds
18. Sunday Sacredness in the Protestant Reformation
19. Were the Annual Sabbaths Ten Commandments Sabbaths?
20. Does Matthew 28:1 Support Sunday keeping?
21. Antiquity and Unbroken Sequence of Weekly Cycle
22. Gentiles and Sabbath keeping-A Letter to a Fundamentalist
23. Are Adventists Legalists?
24. Are Adventist Teachings Christ-centered?
F. The Sanctuary.
25. The Scapegoat and the Atonement
G. The Nature of Man

26. “Soul,” “Spirit,” and “Hell” in the Original Languages
27. Immortal-Soul Dilemmas Versus the True View of Man
H. Church and State

28. Are We Selfish in Opposing Sunday Laws?
29. Do Adventists Seek a “Wide Open” Sunday?
30. How Shall We Meet the “Christian Nation” Argument?
31. How Are Prohibition Laws Related to Religious Liberty?
I. Apostasy and Offshoots

32. Six Distinguishing Marks of Apostates
33. An Answer to the Ex-Adventist’s Charge: “I Have Been Delivered From Adventism”
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J. The Everlasting Gospel

A. GOD SPEAKS TO US THROUGH THE BIBLE
1. The Wonderful and Inspired Word of God
2. The Word of God is True, Search It!
3. Fulfilled Prophecies Testify of God’s Providence.
B. THE GREATNESS OF GOD

4. God’s Great Witnesses
5. Creation or Evolution?
6. God’s Love for Mankind
7. God’s Plan for Mankind
8. Satan’s Plan for Mankind
9. How Great is Your God?
10. The Mystery of the Trinity
C. THE FACT OF SIN

11. Sin Had Its Origin in Heaven
12. What is Sin?
D. THE CENTRALITY OF THE CROSS

13. Law and Grace
14. Jesus Christ, the God-man
15. The Way of Deliverance from Sin
16. Why Did God Have to Become Man?
17. The Mystery of the Cross
E. THE CHRISTIAN WALK

18. God the Holy Spirit
19. Stairway to Heaven
20. The Way of Salvation
21. The Cable of Faith
22. The Imputed and Imported Righteousness of Jesus Christ
23. The Reformed life
24. The Holiest Covenant on Earth
25. The Steward of God’s Treasure
26. Saved to Serve
27. Living Victoriously Until Christ Returns
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From the Author To the Reader of This Book

EVERY WEEK THERE COMES to my desk a variety of journals. Not infrequently 1 read an
article that presents weighty evidence and lengthy argument in behalf of a certain view, and 1 feel confident
that the position taken by the author cannot be overthrown. With no small interest I wait to see what will be
the comment of other journals which I know hold a different view on the subject.
Sometimes there is a candid admission as to the force of the general argument. But not
infrequently the reply will ignore the main outline of evidence-for it is too strong to attack and will pick out
some doubtful historical statement, or some questionable bit of reasoning, and hold it up to ridicule. The
Objective, of course, is to convey the impression that the whole line of argument is no stronger than the
little piece being held up for scrutiny. This is a favorite method of reply, and is generally quite effective,
because those who read the criticism have not, in most instances, read the article that is being attacked.
They unwittingly are led to believe that it is all as ridiculous or as unsupported as the fragment that has
been cited.
The more powerful the case in behalf of a proposition, the more certain it is that this method of
attack will be used. And the more militantly a proposition is set forth, the more certain are its adversaries to
scrutinize every line to find some statement that can be made the butt of ridicule or invective.
Now this fact is of real importance to Seventh-day Adventists. We not only can make out a most
excellent case in behalf of our views, for they are Scriptural, but we often set forth our proofs-as we may
properly do-with great vigor. The result is that we are subjected to the sort of attack here described. When 1
have read in a non-Adventist journal, or perhaps in a special pamphlet, a reply to some Seventh-day
Adventist worker 1 s doctrinal statement 1 have been mortified to find betimes that occasion has been
afforded our opponents to riddle a particular part of the logic or evidence.
To denounce these opponents as enemies of righteousness because of such tactics may relieve our
souls, but it will not undo the damage done to the cause. Our task is to be sure of our every statement-
Scriptural, historical, and logical-before we rise up impressively to declare that we have the truth. We need
to make a clear distinction in our minds between the basic doctrines we believe and the arguments and
evidence we employ to expound and defend those doctrines. It does not follow that because a doctrine is
true therefore every argument used to support it is also true. The argument does not acquire sanctity or
infallibility simply because of its association with an inspired doctrine. To this, all will theoretically agree.
Yet unconsciously we are likely to attach a peculiar value to any line of reasoning employed in support of a
doctrine we believe. If the piece of reasoning is sound, well and good; but if not, and our opponents expose
its fallacy, there is likely to arise in the minds of many the idea that the doctrine itself is in a class with the
particular piece of fallacious reasoning.
We might state the matter in this way: Our primary doctrines, such as the Second Advent, the
Sabbath, and life only in Christ, are so many mighty pillars. The arguments, the evidence, the illustrations
we employ, are so many Paths over which we endeavor to bring men to a close contact with, and
acceptance of, these doctrines. Now the pillar is one thing and the path leading to it is another. But if we
have laid one of these paths over a piece of treacherous ground, or perhaps over a chasm, and have failed to
reinforce the bridge work sufficiently, trouble is likely to arise. An opponent will point out the weakness of
the underpinning, and perhaps even shake it a little while the traveler is journeying over. As a result the
traveler may turn back. Yet this need not have occurred, for there are enough safe paths over which we
might have guided his feet.
As guides to truth we should make it our constant work to discover which paths, of approach to a
doctrine are absolutely solid and which are not. Nor should a guide risk leading men over an unsteady path
simply because this particular route has long been used. Time and weather-to speak figuratively-may serve
to make dangerous a bridge that formerly was only weak. On the other hand, we should be slow to build
new paths to the pillars of doctrine until we are certain that every foot of the ground is solid.
We need to maintain a clear distinction in our minds between the pillars of truth and the various
paths of argument, evidence, and illustration, over which we bring men to the truth. Happily there is not
necessarily any close relation between the foundation of a highway to a doctrine and the foundation of the
doctrine itself. It should be possible to examine the one without endangering the other. We should
continually affirm our faith in the eternal stability of the doctrines, but ever be studying to improve the
paths that lead to them.
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With that purpose in view this book is written. Included are certain chapters from an earlier work
entitled Answers to Objections, though only about one fourth of the present volume consists of this
reprinted material.
In the very nature of the case this book does not move toward one climax. Each section is more or
less complete in itself. And within each section no attempt is made to compass all possible aspects of the
particular doctrine under discussion. Rather, the discussion is confined to such aspects as seem most in
debate or most in need of clarification.
Takoma Park, Washington, D.C.

August 1, 1947
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1. The Christian Way to Contend for the Faith

TO MANY, THE THOUGHT of engaging in argument or controversy on any subject is a
distressing one. And if the subject be religion, the distress is heightened by a feeling that sacrilege will be
committed. Now it must be admitted there is some good ground for this feeling, for certainly through the
years the name of religion has often been, outraged by the strident voices of its would-be defenders. Often
has it been true that counsel has been darkened with words, and heat rather than fight produced by verbal
exchanges.
But despite all this, the fact remains that in the promoting of religious beliefs, controversy and
dispute cannot be wholly avoided. We are still the church militant, and must fight many battles. We may
well strive to live peaceably with all men, but, the first business of an army is not to sign peace treaties but
to fight. Christ never started a quarrel in all His public ministry, yet how frequently was He engaged in
dispute with the scribes and Pharisees. A reading of the history of the Reformation period shows how
inevitable was vigorous discussion in the setting forth of the truths of Protestantism. And an examination of
the early literature of our denomination reveals again the distinguishing marks of fearless contending for
the faith, even when it involved militant discussion.
The history of most religious movements shows that they began amid controversy and debate, the
ministers of the movement feeling that they must ardently defend the truths they considered vital, and
promote them even at the expense of peace. But as the denominations grew older and became well
established in the religious world, the crusading fervor generally cooled. Peace with their religious
neighbors began to seem more important than the promotion of their distinctive truths. The price of
respectability in the religious community is too often silence on distinctive doctrines.
That religious organizations generally have paid this price today is evident by the fact that we hear
little or no discussion any more of the particular reasons why one is a Methodist, or a Baptist, or a
Presbyterian, or a Congregationalist. Rather do we hear a great deal about church unity, getting together,
forgetting differences. This would seem like a beautiful objective were it not for the fact that this forgetting
of religious differences, which lies at the bottom of church unity and so-called peace, requires the
submerging, if not the repudiation, of the distinctive Bible truths which gave rise to these movements. The
whole plan of confederacy between denominations seems to be built on the principle that everything else is
secondary to peace and harmony.
Doctrines a Protection
That there is any great danger our movement will proceed in this matter along the line of other
movements, we do not believe. We are in a real way protected from this temptation to consider peace the
most important thing in our lives, by the fact that some of our doctrines-for example, the Sabbath-are so
different from those of all other denominations that we could hardly be drawn into any confederacy. And
for this we may thank God.
Our great need is to make certain that we carry on our discussions in such a manner that not only
the truth will be made plain but the name of God will also be glorified, and, if possible, the hearts of the
hearers be convicted as well as convinced. This is oftentimes a hard thing to do. But it is a worth-while goal
to set before ourselves in the matter of contending for the faith. A few primary rules, if followed carefully,
will aid one greatly in reaching this desired goal. These rules will apply to a discussion on the public
platform, through the press, or over the back fence.
1. Impute Good Faith and Sincerity to the One with Whom You Are Disputing. Sincerity may be
possessed by one who holds the most preposterous opinion. It may be hard to keep from revealing irritation
and impatience at the absurd views set forth. But remember that the one who is setting them forth is
doubtless troubled with a similar temptation in listening to your views, which he may sincerely consider
preposterous. Some of us often have occasion to make close and friendly contacts with certain ardent
Sunday advocates, thanks to our being on the same side of the prohibition question. These contacts have
not made us any less certain that Sunday legislation is evil and should be militantly fought, but they have
given us a clearer realization of the sincerity and good faith of these Sunday reformers that should enable us
to differ with them in a more Christian spirit.
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Be Calm
2. Keep Calm. If you cannot fight for the faith without displaying an unseemly rise of temperature,
do not fight. Stay by the stuff, and let others of more equable disposition, or those who have gained the
victory over anger, carry on the active warfare for the faith.
3. Do Not Use Hard Words; and Be Sparing of Anything That Approaches Ridicule or Irony. This
is hard counsel for some of us. There are doubtless times when strong language, even as strong as that of
Elijah on Carmel, may be in order, but those occasions, we believe, are rare. We who have the assurance in
our hearts that the truth and the evidence are on our side can well afford, not only to be calm and cool, but
kind in our language. The spectators, if there be any, will measure our argument, at least in part, by our
form of speech, even if the one with whom we are differing does not.
How great is the temptation -sometimes to ridicule openly and baldly an absurd argument hurled
against the truth! But how much better it is to discover by the grace of God some form of expression that
will enable us to make the necessary exposure of the foolish argument with the least injury to the man’s
feelings! This gives us the greatest hope of winning him and those who listen.
When Mary anointed Christ, Simon the leper was indignant. Doubtless he revealed his feelings
plainly on his countenance. What an excellent opportunity, we would say, for Christ to rebuke him directly
and unmercifully; for his hypocritical indignation was unpardonable. But the record tells us’ that “Jesus
answering said unto him, Simon, 1 have somewhat to say unto thee.” And then is recorded the appealing
story, with its obvious lesson, of the creditor and his two debtors. When Simon had himself been led to
answer Christ’s question as to which of the debtors would love the creditor the more, then, and not until
then, did the Savior administer any rebuke.
This incident is one of the choicest lessons in the fine art of how to set before a man the proof of
the unreasonableness of his attitude or arguments. In fact, a study of all the Gospel narratives of Christ’s
discussion with His enemies makes helpful and profitable reading for all those who fight for the faith, and
that should include in one sense or another every one of us.
Be Serious
4. Reveal a Spirit of Great Seriousness. Let it be evident that your contending for your religious
views is not to satisfy any unfortunate desire for wrangling or controversy, but is prompted by a solemn
conviction that the beliefs you hold are of most serious importance. In fighting for the faith, we are always
under the handicap of the mistaken charge that we are debaters and disputers, who like to engage in
controversy because we are simply a contentious crowd. Nothing can do more to neutralize this charge than
a serious, solemn manner in every discussion of truth.
5. Appeal to the Heart as Well as to the Head. It is one thing to convince a man; it is another thing
to convict him, and create in his soul a desire to obey the truths you have set forth. It is not simply a
question of what to say, but how to say it, if you would bring conviction. Endeavor to lift the discussion, as
it draws toward its close, above the level of a mere question of facts and evidence, to the plane of the
relation that these facts bear to the hearer’s heart and eternal destiny. It is not enough simply to pyramid
evidence to convince a man that the Second Advent of Christ is near; we should strive to show the great
importance of this fact to a man’s heart and to his future life. It will not profit us simply to close the mouths
of disputants so they will no longer attempt to set forth their erroneous beliefs; we must strive to open their
hearts to receive the truths we have so earnestly been endeavoring to prove by our array of evidence.
These few suggestions are not offered with the thought of promoting either public or private
disputations regarding the truth. It is not for us to seek out opportunities for controversy. Rather should we
strive to avoid, as far as consistent, any discussion that partakes strictly of the nature of debate. Yet after all
is said and done, there arise from time to time, and often in the most unexpected manner, situations in
which we must defend the faith against erroneous arguments. For such occasions the foregoing suggestions
are offered.
2. Don’t Read Into Scripture What Is Not There

IN THE BOOK OF DEUTERONOMY is found a text which some of us are likely to remember
only in part. The text reads thus: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which
are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
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Deuteronomy 29:29. We obtain great spiritual satisfaction from the thought that God has revealed certain
things to us, that they are for our blessing and instruction. Accordingly, we study with constant enthusiasm
the revelation of God as it is found in the writings of the prophets.
But at times we ought to give attention to the first part of the text, which informs us that some
things are secret; they belong to the Lord and not to us. If we always keep this portion of the text clearly in
our mind, allowing it to have its proper place in our thinking whenever we are studying the Word of God,
we shall be saved from many unfortunate blunders.
There are certain types of mind that are much more tempted than others to forget the first portion
of this text, persons who seek to explore areas that God has not seen fit to make clear to men. This is not a
proper carrying out of the command to search the Scriptures. Oftentimes this seeking for the meaning of
secret things proves quite harmless, and at other times it may have unfortunate results; but at all times it is
alien to the true principles of Bible study. The matter can probably be made more clear in terms of
illustration, and of the motives that apparently prompt such exploring of the secret things.
First, take that group who apparently are prompted simply by idle curiosity. Such persons
diligently will seek to discover in some text or phrase a justification for spinning out many theories; for
example, as to the whole manner of life of the saved in the new earth. In fact, sometimes even without the
aid of a text they seek to construct such a detailed picture.
Now far be it from me to say or write anything that would discourage the devout from spiritual
meditation upon those promises that God has given us of a new heaven and a new earth. But there is a real
difference between meditations which confine themselves to the explicit words of Scripture and those idly
curious questionings that spring from a restless spirit. Such questionings reveal an unhealthy state of mind,
spiritually speaking, and tend to make one unwilling to apply one’s thought to the matter-of-fact counsels
and exhortations and reproofs with which the Scriptures abound.
Seek to Bridge Gulf

Another group consists of those who by a series of fine spun logical deductions seek to bridge the
gulf between the revealed and the secret. They would build one plausible deduction or speculation upon
another. An illustration of this presented itself some time ago when a brother attempted to show that when
Lucifer was a covering cherub, he stood at a certain place in relation to the throne. The reasoning was long
and impressive. He took the phrase “sides of the north,” and applied it in relationship to the literal
sanctuary, and having got his bearings from the points of the compass in that way, reminded us then of the
fact that the earthly sanctuary is modeled after the heavenly, and therefore
But the therefore does not necessarily follow, and for a very definite reason: We must ever
remember that heavenly things can be presented to our finite minds only in their simplest outline, and often
with the aid of parables, pictures, and institutions like the earthly sanctuary. Enough is revealed to us by
such aids to teach us certain great truths necessary for our But when we seek to take yardstick and compass
to explore heavenly places, we are almost certain to fall into some grave error in our deductions.
There are definite things that God has told us; for example, about the heavenly sanctuary, its,
furniture, and its service. Of these we can be sure, and from them we can draw spiritual lessons needful for
us without fines pun reasoning. But beyond that, why should we attempt to go? There is nothing to be
gained, but much that might be lost.
The parables of Christ provide another illustration of the presentation of spiritual truths in material
settings. A sower went forth to sow, a merchant sought jewels, and a man traveled into a far country. All
these parables were intended to teach one or perhaps more central truths, but into what folly men are led
when they seek to find a hidden truth in some feature of the story that is really irrelevant to the lesson the
Master was seeking to teach. In variant form, the danger that thus presents itself in connection with the
parables of Christ, presents itself in connection with all the revelations of God to man which are set forth in
terms of stories or symbols.
Not Depth but Direction Questioned

But this fact provides no reason for anyone to feel that therefore the Scriptures are rather an
uncertain quantity and cannot profitably be explored deeply. The point in question is not the depth of the
exploration, but the direction. We can dig ever deeper into the mine of truth and be profited thereby, but we
must be sure that we follow in the direction where the vein of gold leads, and not off into blind passages
where we shall be lost in a foggy maze. Or, to change the figure, my protest is against the tendency of some
to build a tall structure of fine spun deductions, capped with some mysterious or awe-inspiring conclusion,
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and to claim that the whole edifice consists of a “Thus said the Lord,” that every brick, as it were, in the tall
structure is a text of Scripture. Afterward, when such structures collapse, as they generally do, under the
impact of scrutiny, some trusting souls are led to conclude that we cannot be sure of anything in the Bible.
But it was not really in the Bible that was on exhibition; it was the theory of some finite mind.
Another group, whose objectives are certainly most laudable, fall into the mistake of going beyond
the bounds of clearly revealed truths because they are seeking to find added proof in support of the great
doctrines that we preach. More than one obscure text has been made to bear testimony in support of a
doctrine. Some brother feels that he has “added light” on one of our great fundamentals of faith. However,
my pulse rate rarely quickens when someone tells me he has found new Biblical support for a doctrine.
Further proofs may yet be obtained from the Word of God in behalf of our distinctive teachings. But my
limited experience has led me to feel little enthusiasm for searching obscure scriptures with this objective in
view. Never forget, a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and those to whom we present our doctrines
are often inclined to believe that our doctrines are no stronger than the weakest piece of evidence presented
in their behalf. Certainly our opponents make capital of any faulty bit of evidence we bring out. The man
who is truly and intelligently seeking to advance this cause will confine his speculations and new ideas on
unusual texts to his own mind, and will go forth to present our teachings in the setting of the clearly
established, time-tried Scriptural evidences that bring conviction and cannot be gainsaid.
Filling in Prophetic Details

Finally, there are the ardent souls who violate the principle that some things are secret and belong
alone to God, by seeking to fill in the details of an unfulfilled prophecy. It is remarkable how brief most
prophetic statements in the Scriptures are. Evidently God did not see fit to tell us all the details. He has
given us enough prophetic information to provide us with great way marks that leave us in no doubt as to
the direction in which the world is going, and the direction in which our feet should go in order to reach the
kingdom of God. But how tempting it is to paint in detail where God has given only a few simple, bold
strokes to the outline. And how plausible the painting looks when it has been completed with the aid of a
vivid imagination. Yes, and how out of date the picture may look a little while after it has been painted,
because conditions have not shaped themselves in the world as the painter believed they would. The world
picture changes very rapidly, almost overnight in these times.
During the first world war, for example, there were some -not many-who felt constrained to
declare that it was the last war this earth would witness. There were a few who seemed free to make
dogmatic even on the details of how that war would shape the closing events and merge into Armageddon.
When the war ended and the League of Nations was formed, there again were a few who hastened
to make dogmatic on what this new development meant, some even going so far as to declare that this was
the means through which the pope of Rome would come into the leadership of the nations of Europe. The
pope was pictured, sometimes literally, as sitting at the head of the League table, discussing the affairs of
the world.
When the Interchurch World Movement, that ambitious project to federate all Protestant bodies,
was launched, there were again a few who felt free to speak with great certainty on the exact relationship
that this happening bore to prophecy, some going so far as to picture the precise way in which
Protestantism would be bound together by this new movement and would finally persecute the people of
God. They were not content simply to point to it as illustrative of a trend.
Then came the great depression in the United States, and the bold program of economic recovery
promulgated by the Government, known generally as the NRA. A few brethren immediately began to
predict just how the NRA was related to certain prophecies in the book of Revelation, and exactly the way
in which that governmental move for restoring prosperity Would result in persecution.
That the first world war came to an end instead of merging into Armageddon; that the League of
Nations failed to prove a dominating force in world affairs, with the nations going their own nationalistic
ways; that the Interchurch World Movement died before it was scarcely born. And that the NRA likewise
had a short and uneventful life-these are simple matters of record. They prove more eloquently than could
any studied line of reasoning, the grave danger of speculating concerning the exact outcome of notable
happenings in the world. Indeed, these exploded predictions put a wholesome check on restless, speculative
spirits when the second world war came. Fortunately their number was small.
The layman or minister who falls before this temptation to speculate is often very devout. In fact,
the very devotion and sincerity of such an individual often give to his dogmatic forecasts a ring of certainty
that causes the listener to accept such unsupported predictions as gospel truth. If the failure of time to prove
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the predictions of such persons true reacted only against the individual himself, small harm would be done.
But this is not the case.
Evil Effect of Prophetic Speculation

When events fail to work out exactly as someone has declared they must and will, there are always
those whose faith is thereby weakened regarding the whole subject of prophecy and the signs of Christ’s
coming. Of course, such a weakening of faith is unwarranted, for all should be able to see that there is a
clear distinction between the definite signs of Christ’s coming as marked out in the prophecies, and the
detailed speculations of a few individuals regarding the exact outcome of particular happenings.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the faith of some in the general subject of prophecy is injured by the
failure of speculations to prove true. At the same time, the skeptic is provided with what he believes is
another reason for making sport of the whole subject of religion in general and prophecy in particular.
But there is an even more serious possibility-yes, even probability-in connection with these
speculations and forecasts in the present troubled state of our world. There is a very real danger that
unnecessary handicaps may be placed upon the work of God, and persecution unnecessarily provoked
because of unwarranted declarations concerning the future in relation to present events. We live in a time of
unstable emotions on the part of the great masses of the people throughout the whole world, in a day when
intense hatreds can be quickly generated and translated into action against this or that party or group which
arouses the ill will of the majority. Too many illustrations of this from all corners of the earth come
immediately to mind to require any added proof here. But it is this very state of affairs in the world that
should cause us to exercise the greatest good judgment in all our utterances. If ever there was a time when,
in our speech, we should follow the Scriptural injunction to be wise as serpents as well as harmless as
doves, it is now.
A Wide Difference
We have a message that must be preached, and with courage we should preach it. But there is a
wide difference between proclaiming the great time prophecies, with the related Bible forecasts of
conditions in the last days, and unwarranted speculation on particular happenings of the day. Surely we
have a sufficiently positive and startling message for the world when we stay by the clear statements of
prophecy. Of course, to a certain extent we must deal with unfulfilled prophecies; but if we will confine
ourselves to what is stated by the prophets, we shall be safe. The temptation is to fill in details where the
prophets are silent.
Sir Isaac Newton, who was as devout as he was learned, well remarked that “the folly of
Interpreters has been, to foretell times. and things by this Prophecy [of the Revelation], as if God designed
to make them Prophets. By this rashness they have not only exposed themselves, but brought the Prophecy
also into contempt.” - Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, p. 251.
With such a wide field of fulfilled prophecy to expound to the world, how unfortunate that any
should fall before the temptation to wander off into speculation on unrevealed details of unfulfilled
prophecy, or to attempt to construct out of some present happening a whole chain of closely connected
links to tie together that happening in direct and logical relationship to the day of Christ’s coming! It is not
a sufficient defense for a person who thus makes predictions to inquire, “Well, is not my explanation of the
outcome of these present happenings plausible and reasonable? Experience proves that too often in this
uncertain world what is plausible and apparently reasonable today becomes impossible tomorrow. Where
the Bible and the Spirit of prophecy are both silent as to the details of future events, reverence and a
realization of the blunders of former speculators prompt us to be silent also.
Fortunately, there are not many who allow themselves to fall before this temptation to speculate.
But sad to say, it takes only a few such people to bring great perplexity, embarrassment, and even
confusion to many. It is one thing to view with godly fear the events of our present troubled day as playing
a part in the last act of this world’s sinful drama, and to declare with confidence that all these events
provide increasing evidence that the day of the Lord is near and hastens greatly. It is an altogether different
thing to single out some particular happening and dogmatically attempt to find in it the key to unlock the
mystery of all the remaining details of this world’s history. We will never go astray, nor will our message
ever be brought into disrepute, if we confine ourselves to the definite utterances of the prophets. Nor will
we lack for a timely, soul-saving message for the world. In a closely related category is the tendency of a
few to give credence to unsupported bits of hearsay concerning what Mrs. E. G. White is supposed to have
said at some time or other about future events. Some time ago a worker wrote, stating that in his part of the
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field a stir was being created by the circulation of the story that Mrs. White had foretold by name the man
who would be in charge of the United States Government when Christ should return.
It is unfortunate enough to have someone wander afield in idle speculation about future events; it
is even worse when an attempt is made, though perhaps unwittingly, to obtain the support of the Spirit of
prophecy for such speculations. Is it reasonable to believe that an important revelation to the servant of God
concerning the events of these last days would await the light of day until someone in a far corner of the
field heard of it through the precarious process of word of mouth, and began to broadcast it? The question
answers itself. Why turn aside our ears unto fables?
We need to be careful lest our pious desire to learn more fully God’s purposes for this world, be
displaced by an idle curiosity to discover what God has not seen fit to reveal. Let us not add to the words of
the prophets, lest we come under the judgments God will mete out to such. And let us not assume the role
of prophets ourselves, by attempting to dogmatize on the exact outcome of various happenings, lest we be
found guilty as false prophets.
No people has ever had a greater message to preach than we have today, or clearer Scriptural proof
to support it. Let us stay by the main outlines of faith and the tried and true Scriptural proofs, in presenting
our message to men. Following such a course, we shall never have to make excuses for our teaching, and,
what is more, we shall be bringing to the heart of sinful men the clear-cut, emphatic “Thus said the Lord.”
Instead of predicting, let us prayerfully keep our eyes on changing events and on the Scriptures. It
is always proper to “watch and pray.”
3. Seven Reasons for Joining the Advent Movement

THIS IS NO ATTEMPT to present all the valid reasons that should prompt a person to become a
convert to the Seventh-day Adventist faith. Those reasons are many, though they may all be condensed into
one; namely, because the Seventh-day Adventist faith presents the teachings of the Bible. The following
reasons are offered simply as one approach to the important subject of how to persuade men to decide to
cast in their lot with us. In a world filled with uncertainty the following approach, based on the element of
certainty in the Seventh-day Adventist teachings, may prove helpful in placing these teachings in an
appealing light. Presented as a personal testimony, the seven reasons could be stated thus:
Certainty in Spiritual Realm

1. A desire for certainty and authority in the spiritual realm. A person cannot do any serious,
intelligent thinking on the subject of religion without soon coming to the conclusion that the worthwhile
basis of the views held by a religious body depends upon the authority behind those views. One of the
primary points of conflict between Rome and Protestantism in the Reformation days was the question of
authority. The Catholic Church rested its claim first of all upon the authority of the church as set forth in
the declarations of its clergy and of its councils, and upon traditions that had come down through the
centuries. The Protestant Reformers declared that the valid authority for the church must be the Bible.
The tremendous need for a foundation of authority is revealed in the history of Protestantism. In
modem times Protestant preachers have discounted the Bible, placing speculation and human reason above
it. The result is that the foundations of Protestantism have been greatly weakened. An in creasing number
of people now view Protestant churches as having no more compelling power over their hearts than a
literary society or a lodge. Men are not inclined to live, much less to die, for a religious organization that
does not have behind it a compelling authority that captivates and controls their hearts. Men seek for
certainty and assurance, something they can count on. That search is most marked when it comes to
spiritual matters. That is one of the reasons why Rome today makes a definite appeal to many, even among
intellectuals. She claims an authority that is above and beyond passing whims and theories of men.
But as a serious religious person seeking a church home, I would not take long in deciding against
Rome and for the Seventh-day Adventist movement. The first and chief reason would be that I would find
Adventism founded on a belief in the Bible as the supreme inspired revelation of God to man, a “Thus said
the Lord- that is free from the fallible and the foolishness that are often so glaringly evident in the traditions
of men. I would realize that the Adventist Church was being guided the same way as was the church in the
wilderness thirty five hundred years ago, when God gave to man through Moses the first of the written
revelations. I would realize that the Adventist Church has behind it the same authority and credentials
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possessed by the early Christian church, whose apostles declared that they preached none other things than
those which Moses and the prophets declared should come, and who presented to the new believers the
Bible as the true source of instruction and reproof and counsel.
As I looked further into the matter, I would find that the Seventh-day Adventist Church expounds
the prophecies of the Bible, showing the evidences of their fulfillment. This would lead me, first, to an
increasing confidence in the Bible as the true guide; and, second, to a definite assurance that the advent
movement is the church I should join. The evidence of fulfilled prophecy gives one the tremendous
conviction that God has a plan and a program for the world, and specifically that God foretold the rise of
this advent movement in these last days.
As I looked still further into the subject, I would find additional reason for believing that the
Adventist movement could bring to my soul a sense of certainty and authority in the spiritual realm,
because the gift of the Spirit of prophecy has been manifested in the movement. My study of the former
dealings of God with man would show me that by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a
prophet were the Israelites, preserved, guided, warned, and rebuked through the centuries. I would discover
further that in the beginnings of the Christian church the gift of prophecy was definitely manifested for the
guidance and the building up of the church. And then as I examined the wealth of instruction and timely
counsel found in the Spirit of prophecy, I would be altogether persuaded that conversion to the Seventh-day
Adventist movement would bring to me that sense of certainty and authority in the spiritual realm that I so
much desired.
The Question of Beginnings

2. My desire for certainty regarding the moot question of the beginning of our world would lead
me to become a convert to the advent movement. For two generations the religious world has been involved
in sharp controversy over the question of the beginnings of things in our world, both as to man and as to all
other living things upon the earth. The advocates of the skeptical evolution theory have tried to minimize
the whole discussion by declaring that it does not matter where we came from, but rather where we are
going to.
But as a serious religious person who had come far enough along in his thinking to take the Bible
as his source of authority, I could not be satisfied with any such quip. Instead, I would be persuaded that
our ultimate destination has a close relation to our beginning. In other words, even my elementary study of
the Bible would lead me to believe that the record in Genesis has a real relation to the record in the Gospels
and to the description of the new earth in the book of Revelation.
I could not hope to understand rightly the trend and direction of our whole world unless I could
take my bearings from the beginning of time on this earth. I could not find any satisfaction in reading the
promises of an earth made new, where all would be restored to original Edenic beauty, unless I were sure of
what the original was like. It would provide no thrill to my heart to be assured that the earth is to be
restored to its original state, if I must believe that the original state was marked with a varied array of dank
pools filled with amoebae.
Having found my source of authority in the Bible, 1 would naturally wish to find certainty
regarding the beginnings of things in a religious body that believed what the Bible teaches concerning
beginnings. And, behold, 1 would find it in the advent movement. 1 would find my feet standing on the
solid ground at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. With the aid of Bible prophecies my eyes would be
directed to the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwells righteousness.
And right on this very point of the importance of a clear Biblical understanding of beginnings, 1
would find this advent movement observing a certain day every week in holy memory of the fact that in six
days God made heaven and earth, as the Genesis record declares. 1 would be greatly impressed that here
was a most unusual organization, one that made central in its teachings and practice a truth as vital and
fundamental as the miraculous creation of our world. 1 would see in this practice of keeping holy the
seventh day an assurance that this religious body believed with great earnestness and definiteness the truth
of creation, that it was not a mere theory with them. 1 would be assured in my heart that when they
preached to me the truth of the new creation, of the new heart and spirit which God will give to us, they
were not talking some abstract theory to me, but were building their preaching upon the great historical
truth that the God who promises to re-create us new creatures. in Christ Jesus is the same God who
originally created man perfect, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
I would feel that the Sabbath gave me a sense of continuity from the very beginning of God’s
program for man on the earth, as if by a series of links of weeks 1 was anchored to that very first Sabbath ‘
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when God rested from all His works, and was refreshed. 1 would feel a sense of relationship right through
to the new earth, when from Sabbath to Sabbath we shall all come up to worship before the Lord. Thus the
doctrine of the Sabbath would stand revealed to me, not simply as a proof of the people who believe what
the Bible says regarding the beginning of our world, but also as a mighty aid in generating within my heart
a sense of certainty and assurance in things spiritual, a feeling of close relationship with God’s great
beginnings and endings for our world.
A True Moral Standard

3. My longing for certainty regarding a definite moral standard would lead me to become a convert
to the advent movement. No man can go very far in serious thinking on religious matters without coming to
the conclusion that there must be a definite moral standard as a rule for life, for religious thinking
immediately stirs up the moral faculties. The sense of right and wrong is quickened, conscience is aroused,
the mind is filled with questionings, and all questions focus on the primary inquiry, Is there a definite moral
standard by which to govern one’s life? And if so, what is that standard?
Now, my acceptance of the Bible as the basis of authority for religious life would cause me soon
to discover that much is said in the Scriptures concerning a moral code. I would read of the law of the Lord,
which is declared to be perfect. 1 would read of ten holy commandments, which God spoke with His own
voice, and uttered no more. 1 would read of how those ten commands were written also by the finger of
God on tables of stone, and placed in a sacred shrine apart from all other laws. 1 would read that faith does
not make void this law, but rather establishes it, and that this great code which is called the law of liberty
will judge us in the last great day.
My longing for certainty as to a moral standard would thus have been satisfied, but where should 1
find a religious movement that upholds all of this law, a law that is so definitely one complete whole that to
be guilty of breaking one precept means breaking the whole law? As 1 listened to Adventist evangelists, I
would find that they stress this great truth that the Ten Commandments provides an infallible moral
standard for all men in all ages. 1 would find this truth presented in Adventist literature everywhere. In
neither the preaching nor the writing of the exponents of Adventism would 1 find any suggestion of the
demoralizing doctrine that good and evil are only relative terms, that one’s environment and training and
the age in which one lives determine whether sonic act is to be considered good or bad. 1 would find no
suggestion of the modern skeptical doctrine so often proclaimed in liberal churches, that the ten-
commandment law is rather out of date, that it represents simply the best thought that Moses had long ago.
No possible doubt could be in my mind as to the belief of Adventists concerning the moral law.
That, in itself, would provide me with great comfort. 1 would know that 1 could measure my life by
something sure and immovable. Then as 1 looked at the Bible prophecy concerning a movement to arise in
the last days, 1 would find that one of the characteristics of this movement would be its keeping of the
commandments of God.
Certainty Beyond the Grave

4. If 1 were seeking for a church home, 1 would become a convert to the Adventist faith because 1
would find in it an answer to the question that has been asked and asked through all the centuries, “If a man
die, shall he live again?” What a vast amount of literature has been written by sages and philosophers in all
ages in an endeavor to answer this question. The hopes and fears. of men have revolved around it. And
closely related to this has been the inquiry, What is man? Is he but flesh and blood, of the earth earthy? Or
is that which our eyes gaze upon merely a prison house and shell for the real being, which is ethereal and
which flits away to another abode at death?
My reading of much that has been written would bring me only confusion. of mind. 1 could not
bring myself to accept the skeptical writings of even the wisest who would seek to persuade me that the
grave ends all. On the other hand, 1 could never feel satisfied with the mysterious explanations offered by
sectarians such as Spiritualists. Their explanations would seem unsatisfying. 1 could not feel that the future
of men was to be understood in the setting of the seance chamber, with mysterious mumblings and
shadowy apparitions.
And even the examination of many of the Christian writings would still leave me with
questionings in my mind, because having set out sincerely to search the Scriptures, 1 would soon find that
many of the statements in so-called orthodox Christian writings did not square with the explicit declarations
in the Book of God. For example, they would not square with the simple story of the creation of man, into
whose nostrils God breathed the breath of life. 1 could not find in that creation record any account of an
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immortal soul being put into man. What is more, my reading of the Good Book would reveal to me that
God only hath immortality, that we must seek for it, and shall not receive it until the last great day.
I would be further perplexed in my mind from reading most of the Christian writings on the nature
of man, because they, would not leave any reasonable, logical place for a resurrection, or for a future
judgment. The teaching that man goes immediately at death either to heaven or to hell, freed from the
bodily prison house, would not harmonize with what 1 would be reading in the Bible concerning a last
great judgment day, when there is to be a literal resurrection, and all men are to receive a reward according
to the deeds done in the body. Furthermore, 1 would feel that there was something shadowy and uncertain
about the future reward, if it dealt only with airy spirits.
But my examination of the teachings of Seventh-day Adventists concerning the nature of man
would dissolve my problems and give me a sense of certainty and definiteness. 1 would find that the
Adventist teaching presents man as a real being, standing forth perfect from the hand of God in the Garden
of Eden, made animate by the breath of God breathed into him. The Adventist teaching of man is that he is
one complete whole, that there is no separate entity called the soul that flits away at death, but that in some
supernatural way God created a being with a physical and spiritual nature fused into one person, and that at
death the animating breath from God returns to its divine source, and man-the whole man-returns to the
dust. This conception of man would enable me to see why there should be a resurrection and a future day of
judgment, and why God should plan to restore to us the kind of Edenic world which the original man
inhabited.
At the same time 1 would be able to dismiss from my mind forever the disturbing claims of
spiritualists, for 1 would see in their manifestations simply a modern recital of the falsehood told to our
mother Eve by the serpent in the Garden of Eden. [For a related and more detailed discussion of this point
see the chapter entitled “Immortal-Soul Dilemmas Versus the True View of Man.”]
Certainty as to Salvation
5. My desire for certainty regarding the subjects of sin and salvation would prompt me to become
a convert to the Seventh day Adventist faith. Through all the centuries finite men have wrestled with these
questions in an attempt to find a solution of the dark problem of sin. And those solutions have ranged all
the way from the offering of one’s own children in flaming, pagan sacrifice, to the bleak program of
denying the reality of sin and attempting to develop a rich character by one’s own individual efforts. But no
one can go very far in serious religious thinking without being persuaded that there is something wrong
with our innermost nature, call it by whatever name we will. We discover Paul’s experience to be true to
our own life, that what we would do, that we do not, and what we do not want to do, that we do. A sense of
guilt and helplessness dominates the mind of a man who honestly examines his own soul. Certainly this is
true if a man has gone far enough in his religious search for a church home to be a prayerful reader of the
Scriptures.
In the very heart of Seventh-day Adventist teaching is found the doctrine of the sanctuary, which
portrays the whole subject of sin and salvation in such vivid figures that 1 would at once feel as if 1 were
indeed watching the whole drama by which God designs to purge us of guilt and cause us to stand justified
in His sight. As I studied into the typical service of the ancient sanctuary, and then listened to the truth
unfolded concerning the sanctuary in heaven above, where Christ now ministers in behalf of those who call
upon Him, any possible questions and uncertainties regarding God’s way of dealing with the tragedy of sin
in my life would disappear. 1 would discover in the sub1ject of the sanctuary one of the most comforting
truths that could ever be brought to the heart of a man.
Proper Care of the Body

6. My desire to know how properly to care for my body, which the Bible describes as the temple
of the Holy Ghost, lead me to become a convert to Seventh-day Adventism. My examination of the
Scriptures down to this point, in my search for a church home, would have presented to me, as discussed in
a preceding section, the truth that man is one complete whole, that the spiritual is not insulated and isolated
from the physical. Therefore 1 would realize that the care 1 give to my body has a vital relationship to
healthy spiritual living. 1 would see new force in the scripture which declares that whether we eat or drink
or whatever we do, we should do it to the glory of God.
In view of my discovery of the nature of man, and the inspired command to care rightly for the
body, 1 could not feel satisfied to join a church that gave no attention to healthful living, and, in fact,
permitted its members, not rebuked, to engage in many habits and practices that are altogether injurious to
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the body. When 1 turned to examine the Seventh-day Adventist movement, 1 would find something new
and unusual, a religious organization that concerned itself not simply with theology but also with
physiology, with right food for the body as well as for the spirit.
I would feel that here indeed is a church presenting a balanced program for successful living,
according to the Bible pattern. I would feel that 1 had discovered an added reason for believing in the gift
of the Spirit of prophecy as manifested in the Adventist movement, because the one who made claim to the
gift, I would discover from my study, is the one who presented to the Adventist Church certain distinctive
outlines of the doctrine of healthful living as a vital part of the program of successful Christian life.
The Meaning of the Times

7. Finally, my desire to know with certainty the meaning of the times in which we live, and what
the future holds for us, would lead me to become a convert to Seventh-day Adventism. All about me in the
world I see confusion, men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming
on the earth. I read in my daily paper of the foreboding of statesmen, the dire prophecies of general
calamity and destruction throughout the earth. As a sincerely religious person seeking a church home, I
naturally wish to ally myself with a religious body that will provide me with peace and assurance in my
heart in these days of world unrest, and if possible with some answer concerning the questions in my mind
as to the future. But as I looked about, I would find the religious bodies in general strangely troubled
concerning affairs in our world. Instead of their being able to provide an answer to the question as to what
the future holds, 1 would find them somewhat amazed that 1 should even ask.
Yet having started out sincerely to lead the religious life, and thus having given some study to the
Bible, 1 would be impressed that it should be possible to know something concerning conditions in the
world about me, and something also about the future. My reading of the Bible would lead me repeatedly to
prophetic descriptions that seem to fit our day, and then foretell events that are connected with the end of
earth’s history. For example, when 1 read the statement of Christ in the twenty fourth chapter of Matthew,
1 would find that it answers at length the question of His disciples, “What shall be the sign of Thy coming,
and of the end of the world?”
As 1 examined the beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists, 1 would find what my heart was longing
for-an explanation of these troubled times, and a “Thus said the Lord” concerning the future of our world.
Peace would fill my heart, despite the troublous conditions about me, for I would see that all these
conditions were foretold in prophecy, that despite the apparent chaos, God is working out His own plans,
and soon will come the day of the return of Jesus Christ, when all the evil of this world will end. 1 would
lift up my head and rejoice that my redemption draws nigh, and with enthusiasm would 1 become a convert
to this advent movement, dedicating my time and my all to the proclaiming of its truths to the world in
these closing hours of earth’s history.
4. The Origin of Adventists in the Setting of Bible Prophecy

ONE OF THE TRULY UNIQUE FEATURES of Seventh day Adventism is its claim that it arose
at a particular time in history in fulfillment of specific prophecies to do a specific work for God. This claim
is the basis of the appeal we make to all men, in terms of the second angel’s message, to come out” and join
this advent movement.
If this claim be true, and it is, then we need to be acquainted with the history of the beginnings of
the movement. As early as 1849 James White realized the need of this in relation to the historical
experiences of the early 1840’s which saw the rise of the advent movement. Said he:
“In order to show the fulfillment of Prophecy, we have to refer to history. To show the fulfillment
of prophecy relating to the four universal kingdoms of the second and seventh chapters of Daniel, we have
to refer to the history of those kingdoms. Deny the history, and the prophecy is of no use. Just so with the
prophecies relating to the Second Advent movement.” Present Truth, December, 1849, Page 16.
Furthermore, we need not only to know the history of the early 1840’s as we would a period of
secular history but also to see our Seventh-day Adventist movement in the setting of those times. There has
been not only much ignorance among us regarding the historical roots of Seventh-day Adventism, but also
an active desire on the part of some to dissociate ourselves from the advent movement of the early 1840’s,
which was generally known as Millerism. Two reasons have prompted this desire: First, the Millerites set a
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date for the advent, which brought them into derision at the time and which has made them the object of
ridicule ever since. Naturally we wish to escape ridicule on that score, and we are emphatic, and correct, in
our declaration that Seventh-day Adventists have never set time. Second, there has grown up around the
Millerites a fantastic array of stories which picture them as wildly fanatical. And of course we do not wish
to be known as the spiritual children of fanatics.
Early Attempts at Dissociation

It is not only an interesting but a thought-provoking fact that this desire to dissociate ourselves
from the Millerite movement that climaxed in 1844, is not something new. It was manifest almost
immediately after the great disappointment of October 22, 1844, and was very active at the time James
White, from whom we have just quoted, was writing in December, 1849. The Lord had not come, as
expected, and thus the prophecy of the 2300 days apparently had not been fulfilled. The result was that
many nominal Adventists began to deny that God had been in the 1844 movement. They thus fell away,
some of them rather relieved to be known no longer as belonging to a movement that had made such a great
theological blunder. Against all these James White inveighed, as he surely had to if he believed that God
inspired the advent movement.
Today, the situation is somewhat different. We, as Seventh day Adventists, have no desire to
question, for example, the basic interpretation of prophecy employed by the Millerites in measuring the
limits of the 2300-day prophecy. We do not deny God’s leading in the 1844 movement. Yet we have rather
frequently, of late years, sought to blur, or at least hesitated to admit, a close and prophetic sequential
relationship between the movement known as Millerism and that known today as Seventh-day Adventism.
The reasons for this, as already stated, are our embarrassment over the time setting of the Millerites and the
stories of fanatical acts in which they allegedly indulged.
Hence we have been caught in a dilemma. While we have been passively willing to grant that the
Millerites are our relations, though not too close, we have been wont to treat them as poor relations. Yet at
the same time we have at least sensed, though some of us have not clearly understood in what way, that we
need to maintain a definite connection with the 1844 movement in order to prove that Seventh-day
Adventism arose in fulfillment of prophecy. This dilemma may be resolved by producing evidence in
support of seven points:
Resolving a Dilemma
1. That the Seventh-day Adventist movement is a direct outgrowth of the advent movement under
William Miller, generally known as Millerism.
2. That it is necessary to believe in this relationship in order to find an explanation of certain
prophetic statements and in order to prove that our movement today is indeed God’s last movement in the
world.
3. That a study of Millerism will brighten our own faith in the divine origin and leadership of the
Seventh-day Adventist movement, and will provide a wholly satisfactory answer to the libelous charges
made by the enemies of truth for a century.
4. That the fact we are the outgrowth of the Millerite movement does not require us to minimize in any
degree the significance of the distinctive teachings developed under the third angel’s message, but rather
the contrary. Nor does it require us to subscribe to the individual views that might have been held by any
Millerite preacher. [The discussion of the first four points originally appeared as an extra of The Ministry,
September, 1944, which was printed by action of the General Conference Committee.]
5. That the fact the Millerites, generally, set a certain date for the Lord’s coming need not
embarrass Seventh-day Adventists today.
6. That the stories of fanatical excesses by the Millerites are very largely a tissue of falsehood, and
that eminent authorities in the field of history admit this.
7. That the disappointment of October 22, 1844, provides no ground for the charge that God was
therefore not in the advent movement.
Direct outgrowth of Millerism.

Sufficient evidence in support of the first point might be adduced simply by asking and answering
a few primary questions, as follows:
What religious movement in America came to its climax in 1844? The great Second Advent
movement under William Miller, generally known as Millerism.
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Where and when did the Seventh-day Adventist movement begin? In America in 1844.
Who were the first Sabbath keeping Adventists? A company of Millerites in Washington, New
Hampshire.
Who were the first leaders in the Seventh-day Adventist movement? James White, Mrs. White,
and Joseph Bates.
What was their religious background? James White had been a Millerite preacher. Ellen Harmon
White accepted Millerism as a girl, and she, with her parents, was cast out of a Methodist church in
Portland, Maine, because of her Millerite views. Joseph Bates was a leader in the Millerite movement,
holding various offices in the general conference of the Millerites, and serving as chairman at one of the
most important of these conferences.
Who were some other very early Seventh-day Adventist pioneers? Hiram Edson and Frederick
Wheeler.
What were their religious connections? Both of these men were Millerites. Edson was the man
who, passing through the field the morning after the disappointment, received the light on the sanctuary-
that Christ had gone into the most holy place on October 22. Edson, with another Millerite brother, was on
his way the morning of October 23 to “encourage some of our brethren,” in their disappointment.
For whom did our Seventh-day Adventist pioneer leaders labor quite exclusively for about a
decade after 1844? Because the early concept that the work before them was primarily for their associates
in the Millerite movement, our Seventh day Adventist pioneers confined their efforts almost wholly to
those who had been in the disappointment, that is, Millerites.
Testimony of Pioneers
The foregoing undebatable facts of history would seem to be sufficient in themselves to settle the
question of our origin. But the case becomes much stronger when we hear the testimony of the pioneers
themselves. Did they seek to blur their relationship with Millerism and to pose as really something new and
different? On the contrary; they contended vigorously that they were the true spiritual successors of the
Second Advent movement of the early 1840’s, that is, Millerism. This contention was between our
Seventh-day Adventist pioneers and the first day Adventists, some of whom repudiated the basic prophetic
teachings of the movement soon after the Disappointment. In 1850 we published a paper, the Advent
Review, a forerunner of our present Review and Herald. The first issue begins thus:
“Our design in this review is to cheer and refresh the true believer, by showing the fulfillment of
prophecy in the past wonderful work of God, in calling out and separating from the world and nominal
church, a people who are looking for the Second Advent of the dear Savior.” Advent Review, Volume 1,
Number 1, Page 1.
In other words, our Seventh-day Adventist pioneers in this Advent Review were eulogizing the so-
called Millerite movement. They then proceed to chide those “Adventists” who denied the leading of God
in the 1843 and 1844 movements, as the two high points of the advent preaching under Miller were
described:
“In reviewing the past, we shall quote largely from the writings of the leaders in the advent cause
[Millerism], and show that they once boldly advocated, and published to the world, the same position,
relative to the fulfillment of prophecy in the great leading advent movements in our past experience, that
we now occupy. And that when the advent host were all united in 1844, they looked upon these movements
in the same light in which we now view them, and thus show who have LEFT THE ORIGINAL FAITH.”--
Ibid. (Capitals theirs.)
So far from seeking to blur their relationship to the Millerite movement, our pioneers boldly
claimed that they were the ones who were holding to the “original faith.” This issue of the Advent Review,
before mentioned, is almost filled with articles by Millerite leaders as reprinted from Millerite papers of the
early 1840’s. Two members of the “publishing committee” that brought out this Advent Review were
James White and Hiram Edson. The cover page carries the following in display type: “The Advent Review,
Containing Thrilling Testimonies, Written in the Holy Spirit, by Many of the Leaders in the Second Advent
Cause, Showing Its Divine Origin and Progress.” Below is a line of Scripture: “Call to Remembrance the
Former Days.”
Later Leaders Speak

And what is the testimony of our Seventh-day Adventist pioneers in the years that followed? is it
clear? James White, in an editorial in the Review and Herald of 1853 declared: “We acknowledge that we
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were disappointed, and did not then understand the event to occur at the end of the days. But we do contend
that this does not in the least affect the evidence of the immediate coming of Christ.” February 17, 1853,
Page 156. Our pioneers never spoke of someone else who was disappointed. They always said, “We were
disappointed.
An editorial from the same pen in the Review of April 18, 1854, announced:
“We claim to stand on the original advent faith. As to the great fundamental doctrines taught by
Wm. Miller, we see no reason to change our views.
“While the Advent Review occupies its present position, it may be expected that its columns will
be enriched with spirited articles upon the Second Advent from the pens of Wm. Miller, Litch, Fitch, Hale,
Storrs, and others, written ten or twelve years since.” Page 101.
In 1867 the Review contained an editorial by Uriah Smith which described one of the objectives in
publishing this weekly church paper:
“One of its special objects is a review of the past great advent movement [that is, the movement
before the disappointment in October, 1844]. What Adventist who shared in that movement can look back
upon it but with a thrill of joy, and can but long for manifestations of the Spirit of God, in equal power, in
connection with the work now? And how can a person possibly enter with any enthusiasm upon the new
theories and schemes devised since 1844, which oblige him to give up all the work previous to that, time,
either as erroneous or premature? If God was not in the work then, will any Adventist tell us at what point
He has been in it since that time?
“We cannot be too thankful that we have not been left to slide from the foundation so securely laid
in 1844 for the advent movement of these last days. Every advent theory that has been devised, which
ignores the past work, is a castle in the air, a pyramid without a base, a building without a foundation.”-
December 17, 1867, Page 8.
In 1875 James White brought out a Life of William Miller, largely a condensation of the work
written by a former Millerite Editor, Sylvester Bliss, in 1853. In the preface Elder White explained that the
book was being published because, Seventh-day Adventists view Miller’s work as of God. In 1877 Uriah
Smith’s book The Sanctuary was published. In this he declared:
“The present generation has seen a religious movement such as no other generation ever
witnessed: a world-wide agitation of the question of Christ’s immediate second coming, calling out
hundreds of thousands of believers in the doctrine. Time has continued; and under the name of Millerism it
now receives the flippant sneer of the careless multitudes.” - The Sanctuary, Page 13.
“The great advent movement of 1840-1844 was in; the order and purpose of God. He must
therefore still have a people on the earth as a result of that movement; He must still have a truth among men
bearing some relation to that great work; and there must be some correct explanation of the great
disappointment connected with that movement.” -Ibid., p. 21.
Further on in his work there is a chapter entitled “The original Advent Faith” which discusses the
point of contention that had raged between Seventh-day Adventists and first-day Adventists:
“Seventh-day Adventists are sometimes charged with being a mere off-shoot from the advent
body, followers of side issues and newly created hobbies. We claim, and shall show, that we are the only
ones who adhere to the original principles of interpretation on which the whole advent movement was
founded, and that we are the only ones who are following out that movement to its logical results and
conclusions.” Ibid., p. 102.
In 1885 George I. Butler, then president of the General Conference, wrote a series of articles for
the Review under the general title “Advent Experience.” He began thus:
“The old 1844 Adventists are rapidly passing away. Only a little handful remain among us. The
mass of our people are riot personally acquainted with the facts connected with the passing of the time [in
October 22, 18,141, the short period of confusion which followed before the rise of the third angel’s
message, and the events connected with its early history. Yet there are facts of the very deepest interest
connected with that interesting period, which have a vital connection with our present work. This message
is connected with all that experience by indissoluble ties.” February 10, 1885, Page 89.
Late in the year 1890 Uriah Smith began a series of editorials in the Review under the general
head “The Origin and History of the Third Angel’s Message.” He spoke of the “great advent movement of
the present generation, which “movement has been in progress over half a century.” He declared that “a
movement holding so important a Place in the work of God, and destined to make itself felt so deeply in the
religious world, must have many interesting incidents connected with its development and progress.” Then
he added immediately:
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“William Miller, of Low Hampton, New York, was the man who, in the providence of God, was
raised up to lead out in this work. It was not until 1831 that he made his views public. The year 1831 may
therefore be set down as the year when the first angel’s message began to be proclaimed.”-December 16,
1890, Page 776.
This is the testimony of the pioneers for the first half century of our movement, and is anyone
better qualified to testify than they? I believe that testimony is clear and permits of only one conclusion.
Second Point Examined

The relationship of Seventh-day Adventists to the Millerite movement becomes even more
evident, if that be possible, when we examine the second point in our series. That point is this: We must
believe in a close relationship between ourselves and Millerism in order to find an explanation of certain
prophetic statements, and in order to prove that the Seventh day Adventist movement is God’s last
movement in the world.
Very soon after 1844 some first-day Adventists began to doubt the genuineness of their 1844
experience. Our Seventh day Adventist pioneers argued that to do this was to remove the historical facts on
which certain prophecies depended for proof of their fulfillment. Said James White in 1849:
“If we deny our holy experience in the great leading movements, in the past, such as the
proclamation of the time in 1843 and 1844, then we cannot show a fulfillment of those prophecies relating
to those movements. Therefore, those who deny their past experience, while following God and His Holy
Word, deny or misapply a portion of the sure Word.” - Present Truth, December, 1849.
Now it is not possible for us today to “deny” an “experience” of 1844. We were not yet born. But
when we attempt to dissociate ourselves from that “experience” do we not go as hr as it is possible for us to
go in denying the “experience”? And do we not thus weaken the connection between prophecy and its
fulfillment? It is an interesting fact that one of the very first productions from the pen of a Seventh-day
Adventist pioneer-Second Advent Way Marks and High Heaps, written by Joseph Bates in 1847-sought to
establish the faith of “the little flock” by showing the fulfillment of certain prophecies in connection with
the Millerite movement. Said he:
“The design of the author of the following pages is to strengthen and encourage the honest hearted,
humble people of God, that have been, and still are, willing to keep the commandments of God and
testimony of Jesus, to hold on to their past experience, in the connected chain of wonderful events and
fulfillment of prophecy, which have been developed during the last seven years.” - Page 2.
Certain Prophecies Fulfilled

From that time onward Seventh-day Adventist pioneers sought to show the divine leading in the
Millerite movement and the relationship of Seventh-day Adventists to that movement by reference to
certain prophecies:
1. THE VISION OF HABAKKUK 2:2, 3. This was the prophetic command to “write the vision,
and make it plain upon tables”; coupled with the declaration that the “vision is yet for an appointed time,”
that “at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it.”. The Millerites believed that the
publication of their prophetic charts in 1842 fulfilled the first part of this text. They believed that the
passing of the first date set for the advent (the Jewish year 1843) was followed by the “tarry” of the vision,
and that the final date of October 22, 1844, would fulfill the prediction, “At the end it shall speak, and not
lie.”
Commenting on this prophecy, James White in 1850 declared: If the vision did not speak in the
autumn of 1844, then it never spoke, and never can speak.” He firmly believed that Habakkuk 2:2,3 was
fulfilled in the way that the Millerites had preached it. Mrs. White applies the prophecy in the same way.
(See Testimonies, Volume 1, Page 52; Early Writings, Page 236)
2. THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS. The Millerites believed that this payable, which is
also a prophecy, had its application and fulfillment in 1844. The “tarrying” of the bridegroom they
understood to be the time between their first expectation of Christ’s coming (by the close of the Jewish year
1843, that is, in the spring of 1844) and the true time of the fulfillment of the 2300-day prophecy on
October 22, 1844. They understood the Scriptural statement, “At midnight there was a cry made,” to be the
sounding of the true message as to the ending of the 2300-day prophecy, which began to be heard in the
summer of 1844. Indeed, the very words of the parable were used: “Behold, the Bridegroom comes; go you
out to meet Him.”
The Seventh-day Adventist pioneers continued to believe that this parable and prophecy met their
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fulfillment in 1844. (See, for example, The Great Controversy, pp. 393-398; Thoughts on Daniel and the
Revelation, p. 640) In her first vision Mrs. White described the “bright light set up” at the “beginning of the
path” toward the kingdom, as the midnight cry.” - Early Writings, Page 14.
3. THE PROPHECY OF REVELATION 3:7-10. We must look to the Millerite movement for the
fulfillment of this prophecy. Such is the position Seventh-day Adventists have taken through long years.
The Philadelphia church reached its climax in the company “who received the advent message up to the
autumn of 1844,” when “every heart beat in unison,” and “selfishness and covetousness were laid aside.”-
Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, Page 395. The shut door and open door of that prophecy we
understand to mean the closing of the door of the first apartment and the opening of the door of the second
apartment in the heavenly sanctuary, on October 22, 1844. (See The Great Controversy, p. 430) Obviously
we cannot apply this prophecy to the Philadelphia church unless we believe that the Millerite movement
truly was of God and presented that state of “brotherly love” required by the symbol.
4. THE PROPHECY OF REVELATION 10: the angel with a little book in his hand. This
prophecy can be understood only in terms of the Millerite disappointment. Our denominational belief is that
the sweetness of hope in 1844, contrasted with the bitterness after the disappointment, fulfilled the
prophecy about the little book’s being sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly. The declaration, “Thou
must prophesy again,” we understand to foretell the preaching of the third angel’s message. (See Thoughts
on Daniel and the Revelation, pp. 527, 528)
5. SEQUENCE OF THREE ANGELS’ MESSAGES OF REVELATION 14:6-12. This prophecy
ties us to the Millerite movement in a way that no other prophecy does. In the first place, we hold that the
angel of Revelation 10 is “identical with the first angel of Revelation 14.”-Thoughts on Daniel and the
Revelation, Page 521. Next, we believe that the message of the first angel of Revelation 14 “had its most
direct fulfillment” in the preaching of Miller and his associates. (The Great Controversy, p. 368)
Likewise we believe that the second angel’s message began to be heard when Millerite preachers
called on the advent believers to come out of the churches. (Ibid., p. 389)
We believe that the third angel’s message began to be heard shortly after the disappointment in
1844 under the preaching of the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers. But we also believe that the third
“followed them, not to supersede them, but only to join with them.” - Thoughts on Daniel and the
Revelation, Page 664.
Hence we have properly a three told message to the world. That is sound Seventh-day Adventist
theology. But inasmuch as this is so, we are today the preachers of a message that constituted the heart and
essence of the Millerite preaching, adding to it a third message and related truths. How could we be more
closely tied in with Millerism? Speaking of the three angels of Revelation 14, James White said:
“The truth and work of God in this movement, commencing with the labors of William Miller, and
reaching to the close of probation, is illustrated by these three angels. These angels illustrate the three great
divisions of the genuine movement.
“Seventh-day Adventists hold fast the great advent movement [of 1844], hence have use for the
messages. They cannot spare these links in the golden chain of truth that connect the past with the present
and future, and show a beautiful harmony in the great whole.
“I repeat it. The three [angels’] messages symbolize the three parts of the genuine movement.”-
Life Incidents, pp. 306, 307.
This agrees with Mrs. White’s statement regarding “the three angels of Revelation 14.” “All are
linked together,” she declares. (See Testimonies, Volume 6, Page 17)
The -inevitable conclusion from this is best expressed in the words of George I Butler. Comparing
the advent experience of 1844 with ours, he says:
“If that advent experience was not of God, this cannot be. If that was a fanatical movement, this
must be also. But if that first message was a true prophetic movement, this surely is. The [three angels]
messages constitute but one series. They stand together or fall together.”-Review and Herald, February 10,
1885, Page 89. (See also his statement of the interlocking of three messages in Review and Herald, April
14, 1885, page 233)
In the light of the foregoing historical facts and prophetic declarations, surely only one conclusion
is possible: Seventh-day Adventism is the logical extension and direct development of the prophetic
movement raised up of God in America in the early decades of the nineteenth century and known generally
is Millerism.
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Third Point Examined

We come now to the third point: That a study of Millerism will brighten our own faith in the
divine origin and leadership of the Seventh-day Adventist movement and will provide a wholly satisfactory
answer to the libelous charges made by the enemies of truth for a hundred years.
As already quoted, Elder Butler declared: “If that [Millerite movement] was a fanatical movement,
this must be also. But if that first message was a true prophetic movement, this surely is.” This statement
not only ties us to. Millerism; it makes imperative that we know the truth about that movement. Our
pioneers sensed this fully. That explains why the Review and Herald has carried many articles through the
years in defense of Miller and the advent movement of the early 1840’s. I have read most of these articles.
They are militant, and they are specific. Wrote George I. Butler:
“There were no ‘ascension robes’ or any such follies whatever. During the night when the time
passed meetings continued all night. There was a drunken, noisy rabble howling around, and making, the
night hideous. But the believers were praying most earnestly for God to guard, shield, and save them.”-
Review and Herald, February 17, 1885, Page 105, 106.
“The most ridiculous and foolish stories about the Adventists were set afloat, and told so
confidently that many believed them true. Here was where the ‘ascension robe’ story originated. Never was
there a more ridiculous, shameful lie.” Ibid., February 24, 1885, Page 121.
A little before this, Elder Butler had written an article for the Review entitled “Pioneers, and the
Interest Taken in Their Work,” in which he set forth reasons why Seventh-day Adventists should read the
Life of William Miller published by the denomination. Said he:
“Why should we not study with deep interest the life of William Miller, the great pioneer of the
advent movement of these last days, and those who have led out in this message? Is it because this move
merit is insignificant, foolish, and therefore unworthy of attention? Our enemies say so. Can we accept their
conclusions, and therefore feel no interest in those who developed this movement, bore the unpopularity of
it, and received the persecution attending ifs first promulgation? We cannot, and be true to our faith.
Mr. Miller’s history and early life are of thrilling interest. We ought to be interested in his life, if
for no other reason, because our enemies have spared no Pains to malign his character, ridicule his work,
and prejudice the minds of the candid against him. This stands in the way of the progress of our work. We
ought to post ourselves so as to be able to meet such opposition with success.
“A careful study of his life work would greatly increase our advent faith. There was a glorious
inspiration in the great movement which he led out. When we read about it, we catch the spirit. There is
nothing more needed among us than a thorough revival of the advent faith.” - Ibid., January 24, 1882.
The last paragraph of this quotation from Butler sounds much like the testimony offered by James
White at the conclusion of his preface to the Life of William Miller:
“In the preparation of this work, we have been greatly edified and refreshed in spirit, as we have
necessarily read very much from the able, candid, and godly pen of Mr. Miller; and we heartily wish the
same blessing upon the candid reader.” - Page 12.
Some of the reasons why a study of Millerism will quicken our spiritual ardor are revealed in a
Review editorial by Uriah Smith in which he enumerated what the Millerite movement had “done for the
world.” We says in part:
“It gave to the world an example of consecration and sacrifice which it had not seen for
generations. It showed what men could do, even though few in numbers, when there is perfect faith and a
whole heart in their work. Time was given without stint, and whole fortunes were freely put into the work.
Means did not come dribbling in, in small sums, tinder appeals for help, loud and long drawn out; but
rather, as in the days of Moses, the people gave willingly, and the treasury was supplied. Would it not be so
today in the cause of the third angel’s message, if there was the same faith and interest in the work? May
the Lord pour down upon the believers in this message the same showers of divine grace that were given in
the first.” December 23, 1890, Page 792.
Mrs. White Defends the Millerites

Mrs. White frequently referred to the reviving of spirit that came from recalling the early days of
the advent movement. But she even more specifically wrote in defense of the Millerites against the charges
of fanaticism. She herself had ‘differed under those charges, for she had been a Millerite. In The Great
Controversy, beginning with chapter 18, “An American Reformer,” she devoted several chapters to a
discussion A Miller and the advent awakening in the nineteenth century, particularly the movement in
America. There is no vagueness in her writing. Here is what she said, in part, to meet the charge of
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fanaticism leveled against Miller and his associates:

“In the days of the Reformation its enemies charged all the evils of fanaticism upon the very ones
who were laboring most earnestly against it. A similar course was pursued by the opponents of the advent
movement. And not content with misrepresenting and exaggerating the errors of extremists and fanatics,
they circulated unfavorable reports that had not the slightest semblance of truth.
“Of all the great religious movements since the days of the apostle, none have been more free from
human imperfection and the wiles of Satan than was that of the autumn of 1844. Even now, after the lapse
of many years, all who shared in that movement and who have stood firm upon the platform of truth, still
feel the holy influence of that blessed work, and bear witness that it was of God.
“Miller and his associates fulfilled prophecy, and gave a message which Inspiration had foretold
should be given to the world, but which they could not have given had they fully understood the prophecies
pointing out their disappointment, and presenting another message to be preached to all nations before the
Lord should come.” - The Great Controversy, Page 397-405.
Mrs. White’s vigorous denial of false charges against the Millerites is in full harmony with the
united testimony of all the pioneers. She sensed very definitely that it would be nonsense to eulogize Miller
and his work as of God, and to affirm that Seventh-day Adventists grew from Millerism, without seeking to
free the reader’s mind of the wild charges against the Millerites.
What Mrs. White from personal experience and through inspiration could say categorically in
denial of the charges of fanaticism, we today can say if we will take the time to examine the historical
sources. No truer statement was ever made than that many stories were circulated about the Millerites “that
had not the slightest semblance of truth.” One need not read very far into the original records without
coming to the conclusion that the most conscienceless campaign of slander and misrepresentation was
carried on against the advent believers. We should have known in advance that there was little truth in the
fantastic stories, for there stands the sweeping statement of Mrs. White. But almost overwhelming is the
power of rumors, insinuations, and false stories. They seem so plausible. The mere repeating of them seems
to give them what they originally lacked, the note of authority. And-we may as well confess they have
almost deceived some of the elect!
Doubtless it is well that we should have an answer ready for these false stories. Every
encyclopedia, indeed, almost every reference work, states that we sprang from the advent movement under
Miller in the 1846’s, and by inference, if not directly, links us with the alleged fanaticism of the movement.
But proper as it may be for us to have an answer ready, this is not the primary reason why Adventists
should know the truth about Millerism. There is a more important reason. We need to know the truth about
that movement in order to keep our own thinking straight and our own faith strong in the divine origin of
the present movement of which we are a part.
Fourth Point Examined

We come now to the fourth point: The fact that we are the outgrowth of the M ‘lleme movement
does not require us to minimize in any degree the significance of the distinctive teachings developed under
the third angel’s message, but rather the contrary. Nor does it require us to subscribe to the individual views
that might have been held by any Millerite.
It would be most erroneous to think of Seventh-day Adventism as being limited in its range of
doctrine because of its relationship to Millerism. Nor is any such conclusion demanded by the fact of our
historical connection. An editorial in the Review in 1854 makes this clear:
“We have no idea that William Miller had all the light on every point. The path of the just was to
shine more and more till the perfect day should come. He shed a flood of light on the prophecies; but the
subject of the sanctuary was to be opened to the waiting flock, in the period of the third message.
“As to the great fundamental doctrines taught by William Miller, we see no reason to change our
views. We claim all the light of past time on this glorious theme, and cherish it as from Heaven. And we
cheerfully let tile providence of God, and plain Bible testimony correct our past view of the sanctuary, and
give us a more harmonious system of truth, and a firmer basis of faith.”- April 18, 1884, pp. 100, 101.
It should be remembered that Miller never sought to create a new denomination with a creed based
statement on all doctrine. Rather, lie viewed the advent movement as a call to study and believe a great
truth, the personal, soon coming of Christ, in the setting of certain prophecies. Millerism was not a
denomination, It was not synonymous with a creed. That fact must be kept clear ill our minds. The
individual beliefs of different preachers or laymen-they were from virtually every religious persuasion-may
have tinged the thinking of such persons, but they did not give the movement its real color. The true color
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of the movement was that of the golden hue of the advent movement. It was an advent movement-a
movement whose distinctive character was due to its prophetic setting. We should never forget that
Millerism proper was concerned primarily with the purpose, manner, and time of the advent.
As the movement drew toward its climax in 1844, the call to come out of the churches became
strong and clear. This call served to make Millerism stand out more sharply from other religious groups.
Thus the movement came to its climax on October 22, 1844, with one great truth distinguishing it, the
judgment hour of God at hand-the first angel’s message-and with a separating call to come out of Babylon-
the second angel’s message. Anything beyond this is not of the essence of Millerism. For example, when a
prominent Millerite, George Storrs, brought forth his views on the nature of man-which views both we and
the leading first-day Adventist group believe today-Miller and most of his associates opposed the views as
much for their being extraneous to the single purpose of the movement as for their being erroneous, as they
thought.
If we keep in mind this easily established historical fact that the Millerite movement was a great
awakening on one central truth in the setting of certain prophecies, and thus ill fulfillment of prophecy, we
have no difficulty in understanding how the Seventh-day Adventist pioneers could write so unqualifiedly as
they did regarding our connection with it, while at the same time holding that God had given to Seventh-
day Adventists certain truths not understood or preached in the Millerite movement. Our Seventh-day
Adventist pioneers saw a significance in the work which was shaping under their humble preaching after
1844, first and most definitely because they believed it was the fulfillment of the third angel’s message-the
third in a divinely connected series. They saw the very distinctive doctrine of the seventh-day Sabbath, for
example, in the setting of that third angel’s message, and declared that only ill that setting could the real
force of the doctrine be realized in these last days.
Onward in Advancing Light

The threefold message, which began as a fervent preaching of the one central truth of the personal
second advent, and which next called on men to come out of Babylon, has assumed its full dimensions
under the third angel’s message, as a reform in all matters of doctrine and life in readiness for the advent.
This is consistent with the plan God has followed at all times, leading men onward in advancing light. The
awakened interest in Bible study, particularly of the prophecies, under the first angel’s message, placed
men in an ideal position for God to give them illumination. The separation from the churches freed them of
the hindrance that so often prevents men from accepting further light, the fear of what their church
associates would think. Thus God prepared men for the message of the third angel. Fervently searching the
Scriptures, certain that God had led them thus far, and desiring to follow on to further truth, our Seventh-
day Adventist pioneers sought God with strong crying and tears. Mrs. White tells of the many times they
gathered together to study the Bible and to pray. “Sometimes the entire night was spent in solemn
investigation of the Scriptures, that we might understand the truth for our time.” - Christian Experience and
Teachings, Page 193.
Light came and the truth unfolded under such study and also under the impetus of the Spirit of
prophecy, a gift given in fulfillment of prophecy. Here long the full significance of the third angel’s
message dawned upon our pioneers, and along with that came an understanding of other truths that had
been either neglected or distorted through the centuries. The advent movement thus developed into its final
form to make ready a people prepared to meet their God. But, as the declarations of our pioneers make
transparently clear, this final phase of the advent movement for the last days was ever viewed by them as
the flowering, the logical, prophetic development of a work begun by God when He stirred men to preach
the first angel’s message. As James White declared:
“The truth and work of God in this movement, commencing with the labors of William Miller, and
reaching to the close of probation, is illustrated by these three angels. These angels illustrate the three great
divisions of the genuine movement.” - Life Sketches (1868 ed.), Page 306.
The historical record and the testimony of our Seventh day Adventist pioneers leave no possible
doubt concerning our origin and the honorableness and prophetic significance of that origin. We must stand
firmly by that record and testimony. To do otherwise-to give credence to silly stories about the Millerites,
and then to attempt to sever our movement from Millerism to escape the taint of the stories-would give the
lie to the testimony of our own pioneers, to say nothing of the evident facts of history. And-mark this well-
it would also besmirch the good names of our own Seventh-day Adventist pioneers, for they were
Millerites. As George I. Butler well said, “If that [Millerite movement] was a fanatical movement, this must
be also.” - Review and Herald, February 10, 1885, Page 89. And as Uriah Smith emphatically declared:
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“Every Advent theory that has been devised, which ignores the past work [“of the once harmonious body of
Advent believers,” before October 22, 1844], is a castle in the air, a pyramid without a base, a building
without a foundation.” - Ibid., December 17, 1867, Page 8. And what is it but ignoring “the past work” if
we seek to dissociate ourselves from it?
Surely there applies here the admonition of God’s messenger, who, after “reviewing our past
history” from Millerite days onward, declared, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall
forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.” - Life Sketches, Page 196.
(Points five, six, and seven are discussed in, the next three chapters.)
SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS AND THE ADVENT AWAKENING IN OTHER LANDS.

Someone may ask, Is it not true that the advent awakening was a much larger thing than Millerism
in America, and should we not rather place Seventh-day Adventism in the setting of that larger movement?
Unquestionably, the awakening was not confined to one land. Mrs. White made that plain in The Great
Controversy.
She described the advent interest that developed in various countries, in greater or less degree, and
probably more in England than in other continental countries. But of this work in England she wrote, “The
movement here did not take so definite a form as in America; the exact time of the advent was not so
generally taught.” - The Great Controversy, Page 362. She added that the 1844 date of the advent was
taught, explaining that an Englishman, Robert Winter, “who had received the advent faith in America,
returned to his native country to herald the coming of the Lord.” The Millerites often spoke of the spread of
their prophetic view to far corners of the earth, chiefly through literature. After describing the advent
preaching in other lands, Mrs. White continued:
“To William Miller and his fellow laborers it was given to preach the warning in America. This
country became the center of the great advent movement. It was here that the prophecy of the first angel’s
message had its most direct fulfillment. The writings of Miller and his associates were carried to distant
lands.”
“The second angel’s message of Revelation 14 was first preached in the summer of 1844, and it
then had a more direct application to the churches of the United States, where the warning of the judgment
had been most widely proclaimed.”- Ibid., Pages 368, 389.
Furthermore, the preaching in other lands did not have the historical features that fit specifically
into most of the prophetic statements we have been considering. For example, the prophecy of Habakkuk
2:2, 3 found its exact fulfillment only in the events of the Millerite movement. The same is true of the
parable and prophecy of the ten virgins, the tarrying time, the cry at midnight. The focusing oil the date,
October 22, 1844, as the termination of the 2300day prophecy, belonged to the Millerite movement. The
prophecy of the little book, first sweet and then bitter, applies specifically to the advent movement as found
in America. Finally, as Mrs. White states, the first and second angels’ messages found their most direct
“fulfillment” and “application- in America.
It is altogether proper for us to see Seventh-day Adventism in the general setting of the advent
awakening in various lands. If God be the source of the spiritual quickening, why should we not expect that
He would stir hearts in various lands as the end of all prophetic time drew near? But the fact that there is
properly a general setting for the rise of Seventh-day Adventism does not minimize in any degree the fact
that there is also a specific setting for our rise, and that setting is the advent movement in America called
Millerism. We have always believed and preached, as vital to the prophetic significance of our movement,
that it arose at a. specific time in fulfillinent of specific prophecies. Only in Millerisin are the specifications
precisely and fully met. That is the united testimony of our Seventh day Adventist pioneers.
5. Should Millerite Time Setting Cause Us Embarrassment?

THROUGH THE YEARS we have rightly declared that Seventh-day Adventists do not now, and
never have, set a time for the end of the world. We have been insistent on this in order to escape the
embarrassment that seems to be implicit in having any connection with those who have set time. In fact, we
have sometimes been so vigorous in our insistence that we have strengthened the idea generally entertained
by the public that all those who have ever set a time for the advent must necessarily have been wild-eyed
fanatics. What is more, we have been so anxious to free ourselves from such a taint of fanaticism that, as
24
stated in the preceding chapter, we have some times almost disowned the Millerites, thus blurring our
historical and prophetic connections. We seem to forget that the three persons most responsible for
founding the Seventh-day Adventist Church-James White, Ellen G. White, and Joseph Bates-waited in
hope on October 22, 1844. They were time setters! We need to back up and take a second look at the facts
in regard to Millerite time setting. We have left the field too long to our critics. Th c following facts put
Millerite time setting in a different light from that long thrown on it by those hostile to the Second Advent
faith:
1. When the comments of critics are studied closely it comes to light that the ridicule was centered,
not so much on the idea that a fiery, supernatural end would come to our world in 1844, but on the idea that
any such end would ever come. Unique pfoof of this is given under No. 6, following.
2. There need not be a moment’s hesitancy in declaring that the Millerites were wrong in setting a
date, that they went counter to Christ’s explicit statement that no man knows the day nor the hour. But
while time setting is a theological mistake, it is a mistake no more grave than that committed by eminent
theologians on other questions of Christian doctrine or practice. For example, the Scriptures declare that
God is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Yet Calvin,
and all who have followed him, have shut their eyes to this most explicit statement, and declared that some
are predestined to salvation and some to reprobation. Well did the Anglican bishops observe, in comment
on the Synod of Dort, which dogmatized on predestination and its evil corollary, reprobation, that they did
not consider it good to discuss reprobation because it tended to desperation rather than edification!
A Strange Difference
No worse indictment has ever been made against time setting. But here is the difference:
theologians have lost their tempers discussing predestination, but they have not lost their reputations. Their
mistaken conclusions have been too mysterious, dealing, as they have, with the divine decrees concerning
the end of man. But those who mistakenly concluded they had solved the mystery of the divine time decree
concerning the end of the world have been held up to ridicule. And this despite the fact that they may have
discussed their subject with sweet harmony and brought edification rather than desperation to those who
accepted their theology. Strange, indeed.
3. It is far less reprehensible for a follower of Christ to seek to learn as much as he can regarding
the coming of his Lord, than to be found with that company whom Christ rebukes for saying, “My Lord
delayed His coming.” Of all the mistakes that a Christ-loving student of the Scriptures could make, time
setting might reasonably be described as the most pardonable.
4. But much more weighty than the question of the relative gravity of the mistake of time setting is
the fact that time setting was not of the essence of the advent message preached by Miller and his
associates. The proof of this statement is unequivocal. When the first advent conference was held (Boston,
October 13, 14, 1840) there was published a statement addressed “to all that in every place call upon the
name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.” This statement declared that the purpose of the
meeting was to “revive and restore” the “ancient faith” held by the “first Christians, the primitive ages of
the church, and the profoundly learned and intelligent Reformers,” regarding the personal coming of Christ.
Then follows this paragraph:
“Though in some of the less important views of this momentous subject we are not ourselves
agreed, particularly in regard to fixing the year of Christ’s Second Advent, yet we are unanimously agreed
and established in this all-absorbing point, that the coming of the Lord to judge the world is now specially
‘nigh at hand.’”-The First Report of the General Conference of Christians Expecting the Advent, of Our
Lord Jesus Christ, sec. “Proceedings of the Conference,” p. 12.
The chairman of that first conference, Henry Dana Ward, and the secretary, Henry Jones, both
went on record as opposed to setting a time.
At a conference which opened on May 24, 1842, in Boston, a resolution was passed to the effect
that there were weighty reasons for expecting the end in 1843. But the proceedings go on to declare that a
person need not subscribe to this time element, he need only subscribe to the belief that the personal advent
of Christ is the next great event of prophetic history in order to be a member of the conference and in good
standing. (See Signs of the Times, June 1, 1842, Page 69)
In the spring of 1844 the editor of The Advent Herald, leading Millerite weekly, argued for the
adoption of the name Adventist as a title for the movement because “it marks the real ground of difference
between us and the great body of our opponents.” He clarifies his statement thus:
“We are fully aware that they [the opponents] have endeavored to keep the question of time before
the public as the obnoxious and heretical point, (and we fully believe the time to be as distinctly revealed as
25
any other part of the subject. On that account we have defended it, and thus it has become so prominent,)
still that is not, nor has it ever been, the only, or the main question in dispute. In fact, there is a greater
difference between us and our opponents on the nature of the events predicted, than upon the interpretation
of the prophetic periods [of time], or their termination.”-The Advent Herald, March 20, 1844, p. 53.
So far as the setting of a definite day for the advent is concerned, namely, October 22, 1844, the
record is clear that Miller, Himes, and other principal leaders did not accept this definite date until in
October. This did not make them any the less parties to the time-setting error, but it provides clear proof in
support of the proposition that a definite date for the advent was not of the essence of the Millerite
movement. Even to the last some prominent Millerite preachers held to the Scripture that the day and hour
could not be known. Miller himself, who on October 6 finally accepted the definite date, veered from it on
October 21, as his letter to Dr. I. O. Orr, shortly afterward, reveals. This letter, in Miller’s handwriting,
gives, among other things, details of the days just preceding the expected advent on the tenth day of the
seventh Jewish month, that is, October 22. We quote:
“The ninth day [of the seventh month, that is, October 211 was very remarkable. We held a
meeting all day, and our place of worship was crowded to overflowing with anxious souls apparently. In
the evening 1 told some of my brethren Christ would not come on the morrow. Why not? said they.
Because He can not come in an hour they think not, nor as a snare. “-Manuscript Letter, Dec. 13, 1844.
In other words, Miller evidently wished to say that if Christ came on a day known in advance, then
He Would not truly be coming, as the Scriptures declare He will, in an hour when men think not, and as a
snare. This revelation of Miller’s thinking on the eve of the expected advent may be viewed by cynical
critics merely as proof that he did not know what he thought on the matter. To all others, we believe, this
letter to Dr. Orr shows that Miller, the leader of the advent movement in 1844, could calmly doubt the
possibility of knowing the day of Christ’s coming without in any way questioning the spiritual, prophetic
significance of the movement of which he was the leader.
Principles of Interpretation
a. Time setting did not vitiate the basic principles of prophetic interpretation on which Millerism
rested, and on which interpretation they built their message. This conclusion follows almost certainly from
the fact that time setting was not of the essence of Millerism and that some prominent leaders were not
believers in a definite date for the advent. The Millerites based all their interpretation of the great time
prophecies on the principle that a day stands for a year. They therefore saw in those prophecies great
measuring rods to span the centuries and to give a clue to God’s final plans for this earth. They saw in
certain great prophecies the work of the Papacy described. In all this the Millerites were but following in
the steps of most eminent theologians of former centuries. It was on the strength of these views of prophecy
and related Bible statements regarding the Second Advent that the Millerites set for their central truth that
the time had come in earth’s history when the advent of Christ might soon be expected, and that His
coming was to be literal and personal. The time-setting feature simply brought into sharper focus the
“when” of the advent, but did not determine the validity of the basic Millerite preaching concerning this
climactic event.
6. Some of the very theologians who joined in the ridicule of Millerism in the early 1840’s were
themselves time setters. The proof of this is not debatable. One minister, in the closing chapter of his book
which sought to expose Miller’s views, declared:
“If any reliance can be placed on the inference, that the historical events to which we have
adverted, are subjects of prophecy, then the Millennium will commence at the close of the nineteenth or the
early part of the twentieth century.”-W. H. COFFIN, The Millennium of the Church, pp. 81, 82.
Wrote another widely quoted theological opponent in the closing chapter of his work on
Millerism:
“If, therefore, we could ascertain the precise date of the commencement of the 1260 years, during
which the Papal Antichrist is to continue, there would be no difficulty in fixing the year of his downfall,
which is either to be contemporaneous with the commencement of the millennium, or else to precede this
glorious era by a very few years. [Then follows a discussion of possible dates.] My own opinion is in favor
the last, Viz.: AD 2015.” JOHN DOWLING, An Exposition of the Prophecies, pp. 190, 191.
The Crux of the Controversy

These opponents drew from Bible prophecies their conclusions as to time. If they were less certain
as to the date of the grand climax, it was due, not to any hesitancy to believe that such a date might be
26
discovered, but simply that they had not been able to fix upon it with finality. Yet these men were nowhere
the objects of derision. No one accused them of fanaticism. Why? We think there is but one answer to this
question: They did not predict that on a certain date the world would come to a fiery end by the
supernatural appearing of Christ in judgment, but that the world would enter a millennial era in which all
would know the Lord from the least to the greatest. It was not the time but the event that was really at issue.
We do not truly understand the real issue between the 1844 Adventists and their opponents until we
understand that the controversy centered on the event to take place. Not time setting but the event predicted
by the Millerites seemed ridiculous to the world.
7. We can truthfully declare that Seventh-day Adventists have never set a time for the Lord to
come, while we admit freely, and without the slightest embarrassment, that we grew out of the soil of
Millerism. This is the natural conclusion from the evidence here presented. All Protestants boast that they
are spiritual descendants of the sixteenth century Reformers without thereby meaning that they are to be
held accountable for every view or teaching that may have been promulgated by the Reformers, particularly
if such a teaching is clearly not of the essence of the Reformation message. Furthermore, the Reformation,
at the outset, was a loose-knit movement. Afterward came the clearly defined Lutheran and Calvinistic
bodies. They grew directly out of the soil of the Reformation, but they may rightly contend that they are to
be held strictly accountable only for those doctrines and practices that have been believed and practiced
since a church organization and authority was established. Even so with Seventh-day Adventists in relation
to Millerism and time setting.
6. Those Charges of Fanatical Excesses in 1844

NOT ONLY MUST WE FACE the accusation that we are the spiritual descendants of time setters,
but also that we are the descendants of fanatics. Most histories and reference works that mention Millerites
speak of ascension robes as an illustration of the fanaticism alleged to have been rampant in the advent
movement in 1844. Hardly a year passes by but some newspaper prints a story about the time when the
Millerites expected the end of the world and sat on hilltops in robes and did other weird things.
That we must meet this charge is evident. We meet it by denying it in whole regarding robes, and
virtually so in regard to all other manifestations of fanaticism. We do not present here the evidence in
support of this statement. The reader is referred to The Midnight Cry. [Published in 1944 by the Review
and Herald Publishing Association.] There the original sources are quoted on every important point in
dispute. But when this material is presented to an evangelistic audience or to an inquirer, the question may
be raised: Yes, that sounds convincing, but what do non-Adventist book reviewers say in comment on The
Midnight Cry? Do professors of history and other learned men admit that the evidence is fully convincing?
Fortunately it is possible to give a clear answer in terms of the published statements of prominent reviewers
in a number of leading journals and daily newspapers.
Some reviewers seek to minimize their admissions by declaring that such charges as wearing
ascension robes are really trivial, and not entitled to much space in refutation, and that the Millerites were
irrational anyway because of their literal Scriptural views. But until this book was written, our critics,
including learned historians, always brought out the ascension robes as their best proof of the absurdity of
the movement. And for good measure they repeated the old stories about insanity and suicide. That was
why this book addressed itself to a full examination of the charges. [The question of the reasonableness of
Millerite principles of prophetic interpretation was purposely left for careful treatment by L. E. Froom in
his four-volume work entitled The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers.]
Eminent Church Historian Testifies

And now what do the reviewers say in admission? First, from Christendom (American organ of
the World Council of Churches), William W. Sweet, University of Chicago, reviewer:
“This book has been written with the avowed purpose of defending William Miller and the
Millerite movement from the calumny of historians. He [the author] does lay claim to forthrightness and
honesty in the presentation of his case, and the bibliography, together with the copious annotations on every
page, drawn from an examination of the numerous documents of the time (many of them manuscripts
hitherto unused), seems to be adequate proof that he has made a praiseworthy attempt to present the whole
movement in the light of all available sources.
27
In refuting the ‘ascension robe’ stories, the author undoubtedly has proved his case, but whether or
not he has made his case in regard to the charge of fanaticism depends upon what is meant by fanaticism.
He has, however, shown that the leaders tried to keep the movement under control emotionally, and
perhaps succeeded to a larger degree than has been generally known.
“As has already been noted, the book is forthright and honest, and deserves a careful reading. “-
Winter, 1946, pp. 103, 104. The New England Quarterly (published at the University of Maine), Ira V.
Brown, Phillips Exeter Academy, reviewer:
“In a disarming preface the author confesses that his book does not pose as history. The work is
based on careful examination of original sources.
“The most interesting section is that devoted to exploding the tradition that Miller’s disciples
garbed themselves in ‘ascension robes.’ Had they universally marched out to graveyards and hillsides in
white muslin gowns on October 22, 1844, the final day set for the advent, it is incredible that contemporary
newspapers would not have reported the fact. They are silent on this point, except for one reference
describing the occasion in Cincinnati, which states that the millenarians were dressed like everyone else. It
would appear that for the most part they spent the day quietly in their homes or tabernacles. Undoubtedly
the movement was a much more prosaic one than the public has usually assumed.
“Many of the wilder tales regarding it do rest on contemporary newspaper evidence, but such
stories were generally prefaced with ‘It is reported’ or ‘They say.’ Others were clearly facetious. Even so
renowned a historian as John Bach McMaster allowed himself to fall into inaccuracies through careless
reliance on journalistic sources. Independent investigation done by the reviewer two years ago confirms
Mr. Nichol’s conclusion as to their untrustworthy character. The book is also a valuable corrective to Clara
E. Sears’ popular account, Days of Delusion, derived chiefly from second and third hand family gossip.”-
September, 1945, pp. 423, 424.
“Ascension Robes Are a Myth”

New York History (quarterly journal of the New York State Historical Association), Whitney R.
Cross, Connecticut College for Women, reviewer:
“As the appointed day [October 22, 18441 approached and proselytizing grew more intense,
unprincipled scoffers and devoted churchmen alike persecuted the Millerites at every opportunity,
distorting their preaching, questioning their motives and holding them up to hilarious ridicule. The few
secular historians who have dealt with the movement utilized as sources unreliable folk traditions and
hostile newspapers. Thus a seriously warped conception of this premillennial enthusiasm has prevailed for
generations.
“His [the author’s] study of the subject is without question the most thorough and reliable ever
made. It is sufficiently able to make the necessity for work along similar lines in the future extremely
doubtful. He has, in my opinion, proved the lack of fanaticism in the movement, at least up to the day of
reckoning. After the disappointment, when more irregular behavior occurred, he has not pursued his
investigations. [See next chapter for discussion of alleged fanaticism after 1844.] He has likewise proved
that ascension robes are a myth, that Adventism did not drive numbers of men insane, that its leaders were
sincere and courageous men, even saintly and heroic. “- January, 1946, pp. 100, 101.
Comments in Historical Association Organ

The American Historical Review (official organ, American Historical Association), Mary H.
Mitchell, Ph.D., historical writer, reviewer:
“The author’s general thesis is that Miller was an honest and sincere man who had reached his
beliefs after long and careful study of the Bible, that Millerism was a part of a wide advent movement, and
that it ‘does not suffer by comparison with other religious awakenings.”
“Newspapers printed wild and ridiculous stories about it, caricatures were issued, and mobs
attacked its meetings. The followers were charged with irregularities and excesses, hysterical and fanatical
behavior, and financial wrongdoing. The most serious accusation was that Millerism caused waves of
insanity, suicide and murder.
“The author does not deny the presence of the ‘lunatic fringe’ that accompanies any movement,
and cites attacks on abolitionists, among others. He asserts in defense that it should be judged by its main
body of well-behaved members rather than by the actions of a few cranks and impostors.
“Specific and serious charges he examines with special care. He is convinced that ‘Millerism was
not really the cause of anyone’s insanity.’ His defense is so strong that hereafter if serious writers repeat the
28
charge, it would seem to be only to illustrate the fear and hostility roused by the preaching of the end of the
world.
“As to lesser charges, tales so colorful and picturesque as those of Millerites dressed in long, white
robes, waiting in graveyards or in trees and on platforms for Gabriel to blow his horn, will not pass into the
oblivion which he feels they deserve, but into the realm of folklore.
“Mr. Nichol has done an immense amount of work, with valuable R1Sults, both in exposition and
defense. His self-confessed bias is not extreme or bitter.” - January, 1946, pp. 331, 332.
Christian Advocate (leading weekly of the Methodist Church), Roy L. Smith, editor of the
Advocate, reviewer:
“Wild and fanciful tales were told about the Millerites, and the most scandalous charges were
made against them and their doctrines. It was an age of colorful reporting on the part of newspapers, and
uncertain means of communication, as a result of which gossip was made to appear as fact. Stories of
ascension robes, dementia, riots, and other attendant circumstances were widely current and universally
believed. That the Miller movement continues to exist as a denominational group is not widely known,
though the adherents are themselves a devout body.
“One of their number, in a careful and thoroughgoing fashion, has undertaken to remove much of
the stigma attached to the early movement, and in a carefully documented volume which represents an
enormous amount of painstaking research he has presented a portrait of a forceful figure whose preaching
created the movement. It is a good book, if for no other reason than that it explodes so many of the
indefensible charges against an honest man who was proved to be also a mistaken one.”-February 21, 1946,
p. 26.
University Professor Testifies

The Christian Century (most prominent interdenominational weekly in America), Sidney E. Mead,
University of Chicago, reviewer:
“This ‘defense’ of the Millerites will be greeted with enthusiasm by those within the Adventist
churches who have long suffered from the repetition of baseless rumors about their origins, and will receive
a sympathetic welcome from people outside those churches who have an interest in historical accuracy.
“The first nineteen chapters tell the story of William Miller. Here the author does justice to the
integrity and sincerity of Miller. The exciting events of the ‘year of the end of the world’ (March, 1843, to
March, 1844) are treated with restraint, and the ‘great day of hope’ (October 22, 1844), the final day set by
the leaders for the Second Coming, is adequately dealt with.
“In the second section of the book the author argues convincingly from the evidence that common
charges-for example, that the movement was fanatical and led to insanity, suicides, and murders -have been
greatly exaggerated. Three of these chapters are devoted to the attempt to squelch once for all the story that
the Millerites wore ‘ascension robes’ on the night. In dealing with Millerism, twentieth-century writers
have frequently yielded to the temptation to dwell on the sensational, and this work will do much to balance
the popularized accounts such as Clara Endicott Sears’ Days of Delusion.”-March 7, 1945, p. 304.
Monday Morning (a Presbyterian pastors’ magazine), Revelation Alexander Mackie, DD,
president Presbyterian Ministers’ Fund, reviewer:
“In the story of William Miller and Millerism, there is a sincerity which lifts it out of the world of
fraud and deception into the land of conviction. Miller, from his studies of the Scriptures, became firmly
convinced of the imminence of the end of the world and the return of our, Lord, and fixed the date as some
time in 1843 or 1844. . . .
“The book [The Midnight Cry], although apologetic in its purpose, is a welcome and kindly
addition to the literature which sheds light on the religious thinking of a hundred years ago. The author is to
be congratulated on a piece of thorough-going, even if purposeful, research as evidenced in his scholarly
bibliography.” September 2, 1946.
Baptist Organ Speaks

The Watch man -Examiner (leading Baptist weekly):
“William Miller developed a movement which emphasized the imminence of the Second Coming
of Christ. The movement was a tremendous emphasis upon a greatly neglected truth.
“In a phenomenal way, the whole country seems to have been affected, and the public press
carried articles dealing with the situation. Very few of these were friendly, and the wildest rumors
concerning Millerites were spread abroad. It was rumored that Millerism resulted in insanity, murder, and
29
other extravagances. It was said that on the day appointed for our Lord to return the Millerites put on white
robes and went out into the country and to hilltops to meet Him. All these reports Mr. Nichol investigated
with remarkable thoroughness, and, we think, proves them false. His discussion of this historical episode is
frank and factual. He seems to have left no stone unturned to get at the facts. His research is most thorough.
We are glad for the appearance of this book. It corrects a great injustice done to a good, if mistaken, man in
Mr. Miller and to the large company that followed his teachings. Because of the widespread error
concerning the Millerites, this book should have careful and thoughtful reading.” - May 24, 1945, pp. 513,
514.
The Westminster Theological journal (Presbyterian), A. Culver Gordon, reviewer:
“It is a safe assertion that few can read this book without a revision of their estimate of William
Miller and the Millerite movement of a century ago. The author gives a history which is also a defense. He
does not pretend to be an impartial judge but rather the attorney for the defense. Mr. Nichol is partisan, but
he is also fair.
“In the portion of the book which deals with an answer to various charges brought against
Millerism, Mr. Nichol presents material that is of wider interest than might at first be imagined. For
instance, in dealing with the question, ‘Did Millerism Cause Insanity, Suicide, and Murder?’ he examines
the medical evidence for charges of this nature brought against evangelistic religion generally. His
discussion of mental instability and religious excitement is illuminating.
“A considerable section deals with the question of fanaticism, especially on October 22, 1844, and
with the wearing of ‘ascension robes.’ Mr. Nichol makes a good case for believing that with but few
exceptions the Millerites were in their places of worship on the fateful night, that they behaved
circumspectly, and that they did not wear the robes of popular legend.
“Mr. Nichol in writing this book with such painstaking care has put the church in his debt. it is one
that the historian, the student of prophecy, and the general reader may pursue with advantage. It is a book
which, if not definitive for the Millerite movement, is the closest approach for such an ideal presently
existing. “-May, 1946, pp. 218-220.
Lund Stories Dissipated

New York Herald-Tribune (one of the most influential newspapers in America), Stewart
Holbrook, author and journalist, reviewer:
“Most laymen in New England and the Midwest have been brought up on stories of the fanatical
imbeciles of the Millerites -how they gathered and shouted, how they tailored ascension gowns of pure
white muslin for the great day, how they climbed hills and mountains, even barns and apple trees, in order
to get a good view of the event; and how many went stark mad and had to be confined. These stories have
long since congealed into a folklore that is as firmly believed as is Henry Longfellow’s verse about Paul
Revere.
“Now comes Mr. Nichol, with a truly monumental and enlightening study of Millerism, with
especial regard to the allegedly insane acts of its cohorts. With a self-avowed bias, but with great good
humor and a vast amount of research, he has made a book that must be reckoned with. He discovered-what
every infidel knows-that the greatest persecutors of all were the other Christian sects.
“Mr. Nichol has done a remarkably clear, fine, and important book, and it stands virtually alone in
its field. Though I admire the book and found it of intense interest, I regret it must largely dissipate the
more lurid of the folk tales about the Millerites, wondrous stories cherished for years.”-Weekly Book
Review, August 26, 1945, p. 26.
“Preposterous Yarns” Exposed

Chicago Tribune (second largest newspaper circulation in America), John Astley-Cock, MA,
(Cambridge University), religious editor of the Tribune, reviewer:
“Miller was an ardent and sincere evangelist of unassuming humility whose revivalism weaned
many from the flesh pots and created the fruitful soil whence sprang all the Advent denominations, the
most prominent today being the Seventh-day Adventists, with a world membership exceeding half a
million.
“Miller, however, was jealously reviled by contemporaries, his followers accused of fanaticism,
and the movement accused of causing murder, suicide, and insanity. Broadsides ridiculed the ascension
robes which it was alleged, entirely without foundation As it now appears, were worn in expectancy of the
Rapture. All this calumny and irresponsible gossip have been so extensively copied and quoted unchecked
30
by writers, encyclopedic and literary, during the last century that the most preposterous yarns have virtually
become, a part of folklore.
“This book is a defense of Millerism. Not by the apologetic method of special pleading, but solely,
by allowing the documentary record, either of affirmation or refutation, to speak for itself. Every story is
traced to its source and shown to be either fabrication or distortion and even malicious representation.
“By presenting the origin and progress of Millerism with judicial impartiality, without any of the
historian’s or biographer’s inevitable subjectivity, the author has placed all future writers on the subject
under weighty obligation.” - July 29, 1945.
The Seventh-day Adventist movement must focus on the date October 22, 1844. It is heartening to
know by the evidence, and by the admissions of non-Adventists, that that day is not surrounded with silly
and fanatical acts. Of course, Mrs. White’s words have been plain for all to read, that the stories of
fanaticism were an invention of the devil. But, then, we are sometimes slow to believe all that the prophets
have said!
7. Charges of Fanaticism in the Years Following 1844

THE MILLERITE MOVEMENT proper ended with the great disappointment of October 22,
1844, or at the latest with the Albany Conference held early in 1845. A loose-knit movement at best, it was
held together by the mutual conviction and enthusiasm of leadership and members. The fact that almost all
finally accepted a definite date for the advent only ensured that following that date the movement would
tend to break up.
So long as the movement had united leadership, more or less official publications, and frequent
general conferences, the spirit and temper of the movement could be quite accurately determined. An
erratic or fanatical individual or group stood out in sharp contrast to the main body, and the spokesmen for
the movement could record their disapproval of anything irrational in conduct. Such declarations of
disapproval were sometimes necessary, for there are always unstable and fanatical spirits that seek to attach
themselves to any new religious movement.
But all this was rapidly changed after the movement broke up. No longer was there a well-defined
and unified company called Millerites, who could in a united way denounce and expel any fanatical spirits
who might seek to parade under the name of Millerite or Adventist. Indeed, the Millerites not only were no
longer united; they were actually divided into theologically opposing groups. And running true to the sad
history of theological controversy, those in one group were not unready at times to give credence to a story
about the “fanatical” beliefs and ways of those in some other group. All the while a hostile world was ready
to accept and broadcast any story, no matter how fanciful, regarding anyone who had espoused the advent
teachings. The marvel is, not that charges of fanaticism have come down to us regarding the Millerites in
the period immediately following 1844, but that there are not more such stories.
However, if the following facts are kept in mind, an unprejudiced person will have no difficulty in
deciding that Seventh-day Adventists should not be blackened by such stories. Those facts are:
Six Facts to Remember

1. The most plausible stories so widely circulated about the Millerites up to October 22, 1844,
have been proved wholly groundless in most instances, and grossly exaggerated in the few remaining
instances. Why give any more weight to stories told about these people after 1844? Did the storytellers
suddenly become more veracious in 1845 and the years following?
2. The great body of Millerites stand revealed, from a scrutiny of their writings and their conduct
up to the end of 1844, as quiet, circumspect people, earnest Christians drawn from many churches. Is it
reasonable to believe that they suddenly changed their essential nature and broke forth on every side with
fanatical excesses?
3. Such isolated instances of fanaticism as actually occurred after 1844 received only vigorous
condemnation from such leadership as did exist, whether among first-day Adventists or among those who
finally took the name Seventh-day Adventists.
4. Finally, it should be remembered that in this twilight period from 1845 to the early 1850’s,
when loose stories are hard to trace, there was no real organization known as Seventh day Adventists.
There was literally only a handful of the former Millerite thousands who added to their doctrine of the
31
imminence of the advent, the doctrine of the Sabbath and the sanctuary. Sometimes a small church group of
Adventists would consist only in part of those who had added these two doctrines to their beliefs. Among
the troubled and bewildered Millerites traveled prominently three persons who were the pioneers of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church: Joseph Bates, James White, and Ellen G. White. They encouraged
steadfastness in the faith of the advent and presented the further truths of the Sabbath and the sanctuary.
Slowly there began to emerge the form of what is now known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
That these three pioneers met fanaticism at times is clearly recorded in their writings. That they
denounced it unsparingly is also recorded. Undoubtedly some who were fanatically inclined were turned
from their folly and became stable members of the then-developing Sabbath keeping advent movement. But
that proves only the power of the movement to subdue turbulent spirits. In other words it proves that
Seventh-day Adventism is an antidote for fanaticism.
Singularly Free From Fanaticism

5. The three who pioneered in the Seventh-day Adventist movement were with it for many years.
They continued to preach the same basic views of religious living throughout all their public life. Hence it
is proper to conclude that the more or less well-defined Seventh-day Adventist Church in the 1860’s and
1870’s, when these pioneers were still the dominant figures, was constituted of people with essentially the
same beliefs and the same ideas of propriety in religious life as were held by those who accepted and
followed the teachings and counsel of these three pioneers in earlier days. And when we examine the bona
fide church records of the 1860’s and 1870’s what do we find? Anything that warrants the conclusion that
Seventh-day Adventists were given to fanatical religious excesses at that time? The answer is emphatically,
No! Indeed, the Seventh-day Adventist Church through the hundred years of its history has been singularly
free of fanaticism and has ever denounced any variety of it that might rear its head. That is a simple, non
debatable fact. It would be strange indeed if a movement that has had such a record consistently throughout
all its history, should have flowed forth from the springs of fanatical excess! Is it possible that we have here
the reversal of a hitherto unchallenged dictum that a river cannot rise higher than its source?
6. In 1944 1 had occasion to examine a specific charge of rank fanaticism leveled against “the
S.D.A.” pioneers in the years immediately after 1844. In The Gathering Call, edited and published by E. S.
Ballenger, appeared this charge:
“We affirm without fear of successful contradiction that the S.D.A. pioneers crossed bridges on
their hands and knees, to show their humility, and that they also crawled under tables, and under old-
fashioned stoves to exhibit their humility. It is also a fact that the pioneers used to kiss each other’s feet. In
their general gatherings, they used to crowd all the men into one room, and each man would put his foot out
from under his covers while the man at the head of the line would go down the line and kiss the foot of
each one of his brethren; then the next one would follow until everybody had kissed all the others’ feet.
These things were practiced, not by ignorant laymen but by such men as J. N. Andrews.” (Emphasis his.)
Here was an opportunity finally to run to earth the vague stories about fanaticism among “S.D.A.
pioneers,- for here specific instances of fanaticism were mentioned. The charges were unequivocally
presented as “a fact- and prefaced with the impressive declaration: “We affirm without fear of successful
contradiction.” Here, indeed, was a chance to make a test case of stories of fanaticism.
A Most Revealing Correspondence

Dr. J. N. Andrews, the grandson of J. N. Andrews, engaged in correspondence with Ballenger
regarding these charges. The correspondence was placed in our hands. In that correspondence Ballenger
admitted that he based his charge wholly on a statement allegedly made to him by Oswald Stowell
somewhere between the years 1905 and 1912, when Stowell was “not far from 80 years of age.” In this
correspondence Ballenger admitted that Stowell did not say that Andrews kissed the feet of the brethren,
but that others, whom Ballenger was unable to name, did so. Ballenger stated that there was no one else
living who heard Stowell tell this story!
This correspondence was published in an article entitled, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” in The
Ministry, May, 1944. This article noted that Oswald Stowell, the alleged source of the story, was a very old
man at the time he was said to have told this story, and that the one now retelling it was also very old.
Further, that the story had to do with something supposed to have happened a hundred years ago. A story so
good as this would not surely have been kept quiet by Stowell-a long-time Seventh-day Adventist who had
lived in Adventist communities all his life-until his last days. Yet no one had heard this story before, not
even the grandson of J. N. Andrews. A daughter of Stowell’s, Mrs. Parker Smith, who had heard from her
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father’s lips many times the narrative of the early days, had never heard this story of fanaticism. Her letter,
so stating, was also published. Comment was made on the fact that many stories about Millerite fanaticism,
such as ascension robes, rested largely on the memories of very old people, but that these stories were
unquestionably false. Better proof was demanded than that of an aged man’s recollections-strained through
the memory of an old and avowed enemy-before the record of our now dead pioneers was besmirched.
“Trivial” Evidence Submitted

In his reply in The Gathering Call, July-August, 1944, Ballenger discussed for eight vehement,
adjective-packed pages everything from Adventist preachers’ morals to their theology. All this filled space,
but was irrelevant in answer to the demand for better evidence for his charge of fanaticism. In fact,
Ballenger affected surprise that any one should take so seriously one of the -trivial things” he had brought
against Adventists.
Now, men who wish to be taken seriously are not in the habit of prefacing “trivial” charges with
the impressive words, “We affirm without fear of successful contradiction.” Perhaps he, in common with
other critics who hurl the charge of fanaticism, considers it a “trivial” thing to make long-dead good men
appear ridiculous. It appears now that the only thing trivial about his charge was the evidence he submitted
in support of it.
Thus ended the attempt to pin down what is probably the most specific story ever set forth by an
Adventist critic regarding alleged fanatical excesses on the part of “S.D.A. leaders” in that twilight period
immediately following 1844. Apology would be made for presenting so foolish a story for the reader’s
scrutiny were it not that godly “S.D.A. pioneers” are worthy of a few paragraphs of defense, and that
clearing the good name of the pioneers is the most direct way of clearing the good name of Adventism in its
early days.
8. The 1844 Disappointment and the “Shut Door”

CRITICS NOT ONLY MAKE great capital out of the fact that Adventists were mistaken in
preaching that the Lord would come in 1844, they also like to call attention to the fact that some of these
Adventists---later known as Seventh-day Adventists-believed for a while after 1844 that the door of mercy
had closed. On these facts three indictments of Seventh-day Adventists are framed. They will be considered
in order:
1. Seventh-day Adventists say they constitute a prophetic movement raised up by God. Is God the
leader of a movement that preached error at the outset and suffered great disappointment because of that
error?
If we had no record of God’s dealings with man other than in 1844 we might be embarrassed by
this question. But we have the Scriptural record which was written aforetime for our learning. When the
disciples went over Palestine to announce that the kingdom of God was at hand, both they and their hearers
understood that Christ was about to set up His kingdom. How fervently the multitudes believed this is
revealed by their exultant shouts as He rode into Jerusalem: “Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is He
that comes in the name of the Lord.” Matthew 21:9.
What is more significant in the present connection is that the Bible records no rebuke from our
Lord, no word to correct their mistaken ideas. The only comment is that of the apostle who chronicled the
story. He declared that this triumphal march fulfilled the prophecy, “Tell you the daughter of Zion, Behold,
thy King comes unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.” Matthew 21:5. But
neither the multitude, who doubtless had this prophecy in mind, nor the apostles, who were debating as to
who should have the highest place in the kingdom, realized that the King riding in apparent triumph was
soon to suffer the ignominy of the cross.
It is true that Christ spoke to His disciples of His coming death, but it is equally true that the
disciples did not really grasp what He meant. There can be no possible doubt of this. The two disciples on
the way to Emmaus confided to their incognito Lord: “We trusted that it had been He which should have
redeemed Israel.” Luke 24:21. And Christ responded: “0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself.” Luke 24:25-27.
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How completely those disciples were disappointed! How completely disillusioned! Their distress
was heightened by the fact that they would stand exposed before the world as the disciples and promoters
of a deceiver. Those were their feelings when He was lifted up on a cross instead of a throne. The
Adventists who in October 22, 1844, had expected Christ to come to rule the world could not possibly have
suffered greater disappointment.
If the reasoning of Seventh-day Adventist critics is correct, God was not in the movement
represented by the apostles, the seventy, and all who proclaimed, The kingdom of God is at hand. But it
would be sacrilege to say that God was not with the apostles and all who proclaimed the glad news of the
kingdom. We are amazed at their spiritual dullness, their failure to see the approaching cross, their inability
to understand “all that the prophets” had written. But we do not doubt for a moment the divine call of the
apostles, nor the divine character of the message they preached. When they preached that the kingdom of
God was at hand, they preached the Word of God, but they did not properly understand what they preached.
Religious history presents no more striking case of a misunderstanding of the message on the part of the
messengers, and no more appalling disappointment as a climax, than that of the apostles and all who joined
with them. But what is more impressive in this connection is that history provides no other instance of a
religious movement so definitely and directly led of God.
Now, if all this be true, and it is, then we need not be troubled by the question as to whether God
could possibly have led the advent movement, seeing they were sadly disappointed at the outset.
The Dilemma Indictment

The second indictment is this: Seventh-day Adventism is the result of a dilemma. Adventists had
to admit that nothing happened on earth in 1844, but some of them, the founders of Seventh-day
Adventism, rather than admit they were wrong in focusing on that date, declared that something happened
in heaven.
Now, even if we desired, we could not make an exclusive claim to a dilemma origin. The Catholic
Church might well describe Protestantism in similar fashion. Luther had to admit the awful fact of sin and
the imperative need of redemption. But he refused to admit that the penances and good works set down by
the church were effective as redemptive agencies. So he solved the dilemma by “inventing” a new formula
for salvation; he declared that it was effected wholly through a work done by Christ in heaven above and
that we accept it by faith.
Infidels often speak in similar fashion of the founding of the Christian church, charging, in
substance: The Christian church is the result of a dilemma. The disciples had to admit they were mistaken,
for Christ did not establish His kingdom on earth as they had anticipated. They refused to admit that they
had been deceived as to Christ. So they revised their preaching and declared that He had arisen, and
ascended and was ministering for us in heaven above, from which He would return to set up His kingdom.
Other illustrations might be given from the religious world, but these suffice to show that the
charge of a dilemma origin does not necessarily prove anything. The strict logic of such a charge demands
that a person or a movement, at the outset, must either have the whole truth or none of it, that it is not
possible to have half the truth at the outset and to gain the remainder in the school of disappointing
experience. When the matter is stated in this form the unreasonableness of the charge becomes evident. Our
critics, along with the rest of us, will have to admit that they have learned new truths at times as a result. of
disappointing experiences.
Probation-Closed Error
3. The third indictment is this: Seventh-day Adventists, for several years after the 1844
disappointment, believed that probation had closed for the world. Was God leading a movement that
believed so unscriptural a teaching as that?
The answer to the second indictment is almost a sufficient answer to this. What is more, the
parallel already drawn between the disciples and the Adventists can be extended to cover this present
question. The Bible states explicitly that the disciples, particularly Peter, thought at first that their message
of salvation was only for the Jews. So, far from including the Gentiles in their preaching, they did not think
it proper even to sit down to eat with them. Peter had to be given a vision on the housetop in order to
prepare him to go down to the house of the centurion. When he returned from that visit he told the brethren
at Jerusalem how the Holy Spirit had been poured upon those gathered at the centurion’s home, and added.
“For as much then as God gave them the like gift as He did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ.
what was I, that I could withstand God?” Acts 11:17. ‘When they [the apostles and Jewish believers at
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Jerusalem] heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then has God also to the
Gentiles granted repentance unto life.” Verse 18.
Only slowly did the Jewish believers in Christ come to sense fully the sublime truth that the gospel
was to be preached to all men, even to the uttermost parts of the earth. We marvel at their original,
exclusive ideas on salvation, and particularly at the fact that the apostles themselves were as exclusive as
any. But it never occurs to any of us, even to the critics of Adventism, to question the leadership of God in
the apostolic church. Their idea of exclusive salvation for the Jews was unscriptural we declare, but God
was leading them, nevertheless. Why should it be considered a thing incredible that God also was leading
the advent movement at the beginning, even though they held for a little time that probation for the world
had closed? Is it any worse to believe that the door of mercy has closed on men than to believe that it never
was opened to them?
If the apostolic church had failed to enlarge its vision and correct its narrow view, then might a
real indictment be brought against the early church as the stronghold of unchristian exclusiveness.
Likewise, if the Adventist company, who are the spiritual ancestors of Seventh-day Adventists, had
continued to hold that probation had closed for the world, then might a real indictment be brought against
the Seventh-day Adventists. But in neither case was the erroneous doctrine retained. In both instances
God’s Divine Spirit, whose task is to lead God’s children into all truth, soon led them to see the truth
regarding the world-wide scope of the plan of salvation.
It is not really relevant to the present argument to show just how our Adventist forebears quickly
began to enlarge their view so that by the early 1850’s a decade before the formal organization of the
Seventh-day Adventist Church-the erroneous doctrine was fully corrected. We need only establish the fact
that they did speedily correct it under the illumination of the Divine Spirit.
9. The Second Advent Doctrine in the Creeds

THE CLASSIC CREEDS of the early centuries, the Reformation creeds, and the creeds of post-
Reformation religious bodies, rather generally contain a statement regarding the Second Advent 6f our
Lord. These statements set forth the doctrine that Christ is to return at a future time to give rewards to the
righteous and mete out punishment to the wicked. The clear inference, in almost every instance, is that
Christ will return as literally as He came the first time, and as literally as He ascended. The inference also
seems proper that Christ will return to a world such as we dwell in today, where the righteous and wicked
both inhabit the earth, and not to a world that has already enjoyed a millennium of peace and righteousness.
In other words, the creeds do not support the idea of a post-millennial coming of Christ. This is an
important fact. Adventists are often charged with preaching unorthodox views. Now, the Second Advent is
one of our most prominent teachings. It is well for us to know what the Christian church has believed on
this doctrine through the centuries. Thus can we best show that in the matter. of the advent, as in other
doctrines, we are not the preachers of new, strange ideas, but the restorers of ancient truths. Here is what
the creeds [The creeds quoted are those given in the classic work The Creeds of Christendom, by the
eminent church historian, Philip Schaff. Three: volumes, fourth edition revised and enlarged. New York:
Harper and Brothers. The same edition is used where Schaff is given as the source of creed’s statements in
later chapters. All quoted comments on these creeds are likewise from this work by Schaff.] say:
The Apostles’ Creed

“As to the origin of the Apostles’ Creed, it no doubt, gradually grew out of the confession of Peter,
Matthew 16:16. It. can not be traced to an individual author. It is the product of the Western Catholic
Church. within the first four centuries.” “The Apostles’ Creed is the creed of creeds. It is by far the best
popular summary of the Christian faith ever made within so brief a space. It has the fragrance of antiquity
and the inestimable weight of universal consent. It is a bond of union between all ages and sections of
Christendom.” - Volume 1, Pages 16, 14, 15.
“I believe in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ His only (begotten) Son our Lord. Who
was crucified, dead, and buried; the third day He rose from the dead; He ascended into heaven. And sits at
the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.”-
Volume 2, Page 45.
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The Nicene Creed

“The Nicene Creed is the first which obtained universal authority. It rests on older forms used in
different churches of the East, and has undergone again some changes. The original Nicene Creed dates
from the first ecumenical Council, which was held at Nicaea, AD 325.” - Volume 1, Pages 24, 25. The text
from which we quote is “the received text of the Protestant Churches.”
“I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, who was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He
suffered and was buried. And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into
heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge both the
quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.” - Volume 2, Pages 58, 59.
The Athanasian Creed

“The Athanasian Creed is also called Symbolum Quicunque. Its origin is involved in obscurity,
like that of the Apostles’ Creed, the Gloria in Excelsis, and the Te Deum. It furnishes one of the most
remarkable examples of the extraordinary influence which works of unknown or doubtful authorship have
exerted. It appears first in its full form towards the close of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century.
The Symbolum Quicunque is a remarkably clear and precise summary of the doctrinal decisions of the first
four ecumenical Councils.” - Volume 1, Pages 35-37.
“38. [Jesus Christ] suffered for our salvation: rose again the third day from the dead.
“39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father God [God the Father]
Almighty.
“40. From whence [thence] He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
“4l. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;
“42. And shall give account for their own works.” - Volume 2, Page 69.
The Canons and Dogmatic Decrees of the Council of Trent, AD 1563

“The principal source and the highest standard of the doctrine and discipline of the Roman Church
are the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, first published in 1564, at Rome, by authority of Pius
VI.” - Volume 1, Page 91.
“I believe in one God, and in one Lord Jesus Christ. He suffered and was buried; and He rose
again on the third day, according to the Scriptures; and He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of
the Father; and again He will come with glory to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there
shall be no end.” Volume2, Page 79.
The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church “The Catechism of Philaret
[after the name of its author, who was Metropolitan of Moscow], revised, authorized, and published by the
Holy Synod of St. Petersburg. It is translated into several languages, and since 1839 generally used in the
schools and churches of Russia. It was sent to all the Eastern Patriarchs, and unanimously approved by
them.
“His longer Catechism (called a full catechism) is, upon the whole, the ablest and clearest
summary of Eastern orthodoxy.” Volume 1, Pages 71, 72.
“226. How does holy Scripture speak of Christ’s coming again?
“This Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have
seen Him go into heaven. Acts 1:11. This was said to the Apostles by angels at the very time of our Lord’s
ascension.
“227. How does it speak of His future judgment?
“The hour is coming, in which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and
shall come forth: they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto
the resurrection of damnation. John 5:28, 29. These are the words of Christ Himself.
“229. Will the Second Coming of Christ be like His first?
“No; very different. He came to suffer for us in great humility, but He shall come to judge us in
His glory, and all the holy angels with Him. Matthew 25:31.
“233. Will Jesus Christ soon come to judgment?
“We know not. Therefore we should live so as to be always ready. [2 Peter 3:9,10 and Matthew
25:13 are then quoted.]
“234. Are there not, however, revealed to us some signs of the nearer approach of Christ’s
coming?
“In the Word of God certain signs are revealed, as the decrease of faith and love among men, the
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abounding of iniquity and calamities, the preaching of the Gospel to all nations, and the coming of
Antichrist. Matthew 24.” Volume 2, Pages 479, 480.
The Augsburg Confession, AD 1530

“The Augsburg Confession, was occasioned by the German Emperor Charles V., who commanded
the Lutheran Princes to present, at the Diet to be held in the Bavarian city of Augsburg, an explicit
statement of their faith, that the religious controversy might be settled, and Catholics and Protestants be
united in a war against the common enemies, the Turks it was prepared, on the basis of previous drafts, and
with conscientious care, by Philip Melanchthon, at the request and in the name of the Lutheran States,
during the months of April, May, and June, 1530, at Coburg and Augsburg, with the full approval of
Luther.” - Volume 1, Pages 225, 226.
‘Tart First,” of the Confession is entitled “Chief Articles of Faith,” and consists of twenty-two
articles. The first article opens thus: “The churches, with common consent among us, do teach. The
following articles simply say, “They teach,” meaning the churches. Throughout, Schaff has inserted in
brackets “the most important additions of the German text.” The translation is from the Latin.
ARTICLES XVII-OF CHRIST’S RETURN TO JUDGMENT

“Also they teach that, in the consummation of the world [at the last day], Christ shall appear to
judge, and shall raise up all the dead, and shall give unto the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting
joys; but ungodly men and the devils shall He condemn unto endless torments.
“They condemn the Anabaptists who think that to condemned men and the devils shall be an end
of torments. They condemn others also, who now scatter Jewish opinions, that, before the resurrection of
the dead, the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the wicked being everywhere suppressed. “-
Volume 3, pp. 17, 18.
The Second Helvetic Confession, AD 1566

This confession was written by Henry Bullinger, of Zurich, Switzerland, Zwingli’s successor.
“Bullinger preserved and completed the work of his predecessor [Zwingli] and exerted, by his example and
writings, a commanding influence throughout the Reformed Church inferior only to that of Calvin.” “The
Helvetic Confession is the most widely adopted, and hence the most authoritative of all the Continental
Reformed symbols, with the exception of the Heidelberg Catechism. Upon the whole, the Second Helvetic
Confession, as to theological merit, occupies the first rank among the Reformed Confessions.” - Volume 1,
Pages 391, 394, 395.
CHAPTER XI
“We believe and teach that the same Lord Jesus Christ, in that true flesh in which He was crucified
and died, rose again from the dead.
“We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same flesh, did ascend above all the visible heavens
in the very highest heaven.
“And out of heaven the same Christ will return unto judgment, even then when wickedness shall
chiefly reign in the world, and when Antichrist, having corrupted true religion, shall fill all things with
superstition and impiety, and shall most cruelly waste the Church with fire and bloodshed. Now Christ shall
return to redeem His, and to abolish Antichrist by His coming, and to judge the quick and the dead (Acts
17:31). For the dead shall arise, and those that shall be found alive in that day (which is unknown unto all
creatures) ‘shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye’ (1 Corinthians 15:51,52). And all the faithful shall
be taken up to meet Christ in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17); that thenceforth they may enter with Him into
heaven, there to live forever (2 Timothy 2:11); but the unbelievers, or ungodly, shall descend with the
devils into hell, there to burn forever, and never to be delivered out of torments (Matthew 25:14).
“We therefore condemn all those who deny the true resurrection of the flesh.
“Moreover, we condemn the Jewish dreams, that before the day of judgment there shall be a
golden age in the earth, and that the godly shall possess the kingdoms of the world, their wicked enemies
being trodden under foot. For the evangelical truth (Matthew 24 and 25, Luke 21), and the apostolic
doctrine (in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians 2, and in the Second Epistle to Timothy 3 and 4) are
found to teach far otherwise.” Volume 3, Pages 852, 853.
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The Belgium Confession, AD 1561

“The chief author of the Belgium Confession is Guido (or Guy, Wido) de Bres, a noble evangelist
and martyr of the Reformed Church of the Netherlands. The Belgium Confession was prepared in 1561.
The Confession was publicly adopted by a Synod at Antwerp (1566) and again by the great Synod of Dort,
April 29, 1619. Since that time the Belgium Confession, together with the Heidelberg Catechism, has been
the recognized symbol of the Reformed Churches in Holland and Belgium. It is also the doctrinal standard
of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America, which holds to it even more tenaciously than the mother
Church in the Netherlands. It is, upon the whole, the best symbolical statement of the Calvinistic system of
doctrine, with the exception of the Westminster Confession.” Volume1, Pages 504-506. The Confession
contains thirty-seven articles.
“ART. XXXVII-OF THE LAST JUDGMENT

“Finally we believe, according to the Word of God, when the time appointed by the Lord (which is
unknown to all creatures) is come, and the number of the elect complete, that our Lord Jesus Christ will
come from heaven, corporally and visibly, as He ascended with great glory and majesty, to declare Himself
judge of the quick and the dead, burning this old world with fire and flame to cleanse it. And then all men
will personally appear before this great judge, both men and women and children, that have been from the
beginning of the world to the end thereof, being summoned by the voice of the archangel, and by the sound
of the trumpet of God.” - Volume 3, Pages 433, 434.
Then follows a statement about the resurrection of all the dead and of the judgment, with the
rewards to be meted out to the wicked and to the righteous. The article, and thus the Confession, closes
with the following words:
“Therefore we expect that great day with a most ardent desire, to the end that we may fully enjoy
the promises of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus. Revelation 22:20.” - Ibid.,
p. 436.
The Scotch Confession of Faith, AD 1560

“Subscription [to this Confession] was required from all ministers [in Scotland] first in 1572.
From that time till the Revolution of 1688 this native Confession was the only legally recognized doctrinal
standard of both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches in Scotland. Edward Irving bestowed this
encomium upon it: ‘This document is the pillar of the Reformation Church of Scotland.” - Volume 1, Pages
682, 684, 685. The old spelling is given, but with possibly a few exceptions the meaning can easily be
understood.
ARTICLE XI-OF THE ASCENSION

“We nothing doubt, not the self same body, quick was borne of the Virgin, was crucified, dead,
and buried, and quick did rise again, did ascend into the heavens, for the accomplishment of all things.
Where in our names, and for our comfort, He has received all power in heaven and earth, where he sits at
the right hand of the Father, inaugurate in His kingdom, Advocate and only Mediator for us. Quick glory,
honor, and prerogative, lie alone among the brethren shall posses, till that all His Enemies be made His foot
stool, as that we undoubtedly believe they shall be in the final judgment. To the Execution whereof we
certainly believe, that the same our Lord Jesus shall visible return, as that He was sent to ascend. And then
we firmly believe, that the time of refreshing and restitution of all things shall come, in same manner that
from the beginning have suffered violence, injury, and wrought, for righteousness sake, shall inherit that
blessed immortality promised from the beginning.” - Volume 3, Page 448, 449.
The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, AD 1571

The official statement of doctrine of the Church of England. In 1801 the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States of America adopted the Thirty-nine Articles with minor deletions and
variations. Article IX, “Of the Resurrection of Christ,” reads the same in the American Revision of 1801 as
in the original English edition of 1571. To avoid the old English spelling, we quote here from the 1801
revision.
ARTICLE IV-OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

“Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again His body, with flesh, bones, and all things
appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature; wherewith He ascended into Heaven, and there sits, until He
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return to judge all Men at the last day.”-Ibid., p. 489.
The Irish Articles of Religion, AD 1615

“Probably composed by the learned Archbishop James Ussher. Adopted by the Irish Episcopal
Church. Practically superseded by the Thirty-nine Articles. Important as the connecting link between the
Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster Confession, and as the chief source of the latter.” - Volume 3,
Page 526.
“103. At the end of this world the Lord Jesus shall come in the clouds with the glory of His Father;
at which time, by the almighty power of God, the living shall be changed and the dead shall be raised; and
all shall appear both in body and soul before His judgment-seat to receive according to that which they
have done in their bodies, whether good or evil.”
The Westminster Confession of Faith, AD 1647

Of the Westminster Assembly that drew tip this confession, Schaff declares: “Whether we look at
the extent or ability of its labors, or its influence upon future generations, it stands first among Protestant
Councils.” - Volume 1, Page 728. The Westminster Assembly carried on its work during that period in
English history when the Puritans, who desired to reform more fully the English church from any trace of
Roman Catholicism, were in the ascendancy. With minor variations, the Westminster Confession is
considered authoritative by Presbyterian bodies everywhere. The Confession consists of thirty-three
chapters. The closing lines of the following quotation are the closing lines of the Confession.
CHAPTER XXXIII-OF THE LAST JUDGMENT

“1. God hath appointed a day wherein He will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to
whom all power and judgment is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be
judged, but likewise all persons, that have lived upon earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to
give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds. And to receive according to what they have done in the
body, whether good or evil.
“2. Then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fullness of joy and refreshing
which shall come from the presence of the Lord. But the wicked, who know not God, and obey riot the
gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from
the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.
“3. As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both
to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity. Wo will He have
that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they
know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come
quickly. Amen.” - Volume 3, Pages 671-673.
The Savoy Declaration of the Congregational Churches, AD 1658

Schaff declares: “The Savoy Declaration is merely a modification of the Westminster Confession
to suit the Congregational polity.” Ibid., Pages 718. Schaff gives the modifications. There is none indicated
for Chapter XXXIII, “of the Last judgment,” which is quoted above. The Savoy Declaration is a doctrinal
standard among American as well as among British Congregationalists.
The Baptist Confession of AD 1688

(The Philadelphia Confession)
“This is the most generally accepted Confession of the Regular or Calvinistic Baptists in England and in the
Southern States of America. It appeared first in London, 1677. It was adopted early in the eighteenth
century by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist churches, and is hence called also the Philadelphia
Confession of Faith.
“It is a slight modification of the Confession of the Westminster Assembly (1647) and the Savoy
Declaration (1658), with changes to suit the Baptist views on church polity and on the subjects and mode of
baptism.” - Ibid., Page 738. Schaff notes the specific changes made in certain chapters of the Westminster
Confession. There is no change indicated for Chapter XXXIII, “Of the Last judgment,” which is quoted
above.
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The Methodist Articles of Religion, AD 1784

“The Twenty-five Articles of Religion were drawn up by John Wesley for the American
Methodists, and adopted at a Conference in 1784. They underwent some changes, chiefly verbal. They are a
liberal and judicious abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. The text is taken
from the official manual of The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ed. by Bishop
Harris, New York, 1872.--Ibid., p. 807. All the important branches of Methodism contain in their creeds the
following from these Articles of Religion:
III-OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST

“Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again His body, with all things appertaining to
the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven, and there sits until He return to judge
all men at the last day.”
The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, AD 1833

“Widely accepted by Baptists, especially in the Northern and Western States. The text is taken
from the Baptist Church Manual, published by the American Baptists Publication Society, Philadelphia.”-
Ibid., p. 742.
“XVIII-OF THE WORLD TO COME

“We believe that the end of the world is approaching; [1] that at the last day Christ will descend
from heaven, [2] and raise the dead from the grave to final retribution; [3] that a solemn separation will
then take place; [4] that the wicked will be adjudged to endless punishment, and the righteous to endless
joy; [5] and that this judgment will fix forever the final state of men in heaven or hell, on principles of
righteousness. [6] “ -Ibid., p. 748.
1. 1 Peter 4:7; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Hebrews 1:10-12; Matthew 24:35; 1 John 2:17;
Matthew 28:20; 13:39, 40; 2 Peter 3:3-13.
2. Acts 1:11; Revelation 1:7; Hebrews 9:28; Acts 3:21; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 5:1-11.
3. Acts 24:15; 1 Corinthians 15:12-59; Luke 14:14; Daniel 12:2; John 5:28,29; 6:40; 11:25,26;
2 Timothy 1:10; Acts 10:42.
4. Matthew 13:49; 13:37-43; 24:30,31; 25:31-33.
5. Matthew 25:35-41; Revelation 22:11; 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10; Mark 9:43-48; 2 Peter 2:9; Jude 1:7;
Philippians 3:19; Romans 6:32; 2 Corinthians 5: 10,11; John 4:36; 2 Corinthians 4:18.
6. Romans 3:5,6; 2 Thessalonians 1:6-12; Hebrews 6:1,2; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Acts 17:31; Romans 2:2-16;
Revelation 20:11,12; 1 John 2:28; 4:17.
10. Do Adventists Make Any Contribution To The World?

ONE OF THE COMMON CHARGES against Adventists is this: That we are so concerned about
planning for another world, we are riot interested in doing our part to make the present world a better one in
which to live. Our very preaching of a soon and certain fiery end to the world, in fulfillment of divine
prediction, has caused critics to charge that we fatalistically fold our arms in anticipation of the event,
believing that nothing man can do can forestall or prevent the flaming catastrophe.
This indictment of Adventists, or premillennialists, as we, in common with others who believe in
the literal advent, are often called, has sometimes taken on added vigor in times of national crisis, such as
war. For example, a prominent divine, writing near the close of the first world war, said this, among other
things, in condemnation:
“An hour of agony such as that through which mankind is now passing becomes a new divine
summons to the people of the twentieth century to contribute their part toward the establishment of a better
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world and the inauguration of a new day for humanity. Concretely our special task is that of defending the
sacred rights of democracy and helping to make this ideal supreme in all international relationships.
“The premillennialist hears no imperious summons to this new task. But that is not all. He insists
on being a missionary of pessimism, thereby dampening the enthusiasm of many whose assistance is
mightily needed for the accomplishment of the gigantic task in hand. He still clings to the time-honored
delusion of the nearness of the end, indulging himself in this antiquated luxury of the imagination, and
vainly praying God to destroy the very world that the suppliant himself ought to be loyally struggling to
reform. In assuming this attitude wittingly or unwittingly lie becomes a pronounced enemy of democracy
and a serious menace to the nation’s morale in this hour of its need.” - SHIRLEY JACKSON CASE, The
Premillennial Menace, p. 24. War and Religion Pamphlets Number 4. The American Institute of Sacred
Literature.
The charge of being disloyal, of being “a pronounced enemy of democracy and a serious menace
to the nation’s morale” is a grave one to bring against a person and much more so against a whole company
of people. But that charge well sums up the critics attack upon Adventism in general and Seventhday
Adventists in particular, for we are the one large world embracing body of militantly active believers in the
advent doctrine. As proof that the above charge has lost none of its force since it was published In
November, 1918, listen to the following from another critic of Adventism, writing in 1941:
“Adventism is in reality defeatism. Adventism is a system of fatalism and makes such an
overemphasis of the sovereignty of God as to leave no place for human co-operation in promoting the
progress of the Kingdom of God.” - WILLIAM P. KING, Adventism, p. 68.
In a letter to me a clergyman during the second world war took Adventists to task for what he
declared was their complete absorption in the subject of the anticipated end of the world to a total
forgetfulness of the immediate needs of the world. He inquired: “What would it matter if at the peace table
the whole discussion should center around your idea of Christ’s Second Coming, and no provision be made
to treat men as human beings? To see that all men are dealt with justly? Etc. Weakness of weaknesses: How
much does your preaching of the Second Advent inspire men to change their lives?”
Probably this’ last question is properly the one to answer first in examining the charges brought
against us because of our ardent preaching of the Second Advent. If we can show that preaching the Second
Advent doctrine inspires men to change their lives, then we have shown how eminently worth while it
would be for the peace-table discussion to center on the Second Advent doctrine. And how shall we attempt
to answer the question as to whether the preaching of the advent inspires a change of life? First by an
appeal to Scripture, for it is from the Scriptures that we draw our advent belief.
The Testimony of Scripture

What answer would the apostle John give to this question? He declares, “Behold, what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows
us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we
shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And
every man that hath this hope in Him purifies himself, even as He is pure.” 1 John 3:1-3.
John, who walked and talked with his Lord, knew that he could not contemplate meeting again his
Savior without experiencing a profound urge to holler living.
And what answer would the apostle Peter return to the objector’s question? Following his
description of the destruction of the world when the day of the Lord comes, Peter declares. “Seeing then
that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and
godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His
promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing
that you look for such things, be diligent that you may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and
blameless.” 2 Peter 3:11-14. Evidently Peter felt that a contemplation of the broad theme of the Second
Advent and all that it signifies for the world, should have a most definite and chastening effect upon our
lives.
And what answer would the apostle James give? We find this inspired writer painting a picture of
the economic troubles of the poor in contrast to the luxury of the rich-a frequent source of revolution and
bloodshed in the world’s history. But does he advocate violent revolution? No. Instead he urges: “Be
patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Be you also patient. Establish your hearts: for the
coming of the Lord draws nigh.” James 5:7,8. Rarely are the world’s troubles solved by violence and
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revolution. If patience can be invoked, there may be hope of ultimately working out a solution. The inspired
writers preached the doctrine of patience and peaceable solution of problems. And they called upon the
doctrine of the Second Advent to support their appeal to patience.
But neither James nor any other Bible writer used the Second Advent doctrine simply to produce
patience and restraint from violent uprising on the part of the oppressed. The prophets thundered against the
oppressor with warnings of judgment to come, when all men must meet God face to face. In the verses that
precede those just quoted is found a dire warning to the rich. James reminds them: “You have heaped
treasure together for the last days.” Peter speaks in the same connection of scoffers and ungodly men, and
reminds them, if they will but read, that “the heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7.
Quite evidently Paul in his preaching to the Gentiles introduced the fact of coming judgment as a
part of his appeal to holy living. He reminded the Thessalonians of how they turned from idols “to serve the
living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus,
which delivered us from the wrath to come.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9,10.
We do know that when the day of the Lord finally comes and men behold His flaming glory in the
sky, all who have lived in rebellion against God, including very particularly “chief captains” and “mighty
men,” will flee in terror and cry to the mountains to fall on them, and hide them from the face of God.
Why? “For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” (See Revelation 6:14-17)
We believe, and all the passages quoted support this belief, that to the extent we can now bring to
the hearts of men a realization of the great day of accounting that will come at the Second Advent, to that
extent we have hopes of causing men right now to cry out to God for mercy while the day of grace still
lingers. We are confident that if all those who gather round a peace table ever kept before them a vivid
picture of the coming day of God, when all must answer for every act, peace plans would be drawn up such
as were never before seen in this poor old world of ours.
The Paradox of the Advent Doctrine

That is the paradox of the preaching of the Second Advent. This doctrine, which turns men’s
minds intently to a great day ahead, causes them to make the present days better. By focusing their minds
on a world to come, we cause them to make the present world a more decent place in which to live. A
consuming belief in, and preparation for, the Second Advent does not blind us to a realization of the
world’s needs or make us passive in our relationship to those needs.
This fact seems entirely to have eluded our critics. Yet the fact is not really elusive. A visit to an
average Seventh-day Adventist church would disclose a Dorcas Society busy on some form of local relief
work, generally clothing the needy. This welfare work is so well defined and extended that steps have
finally been taken to incorporate these Dorcas societies as a legal body. Ask anyone of these dextrous
Dorcas ladies whether she fervently believes in the soon coming of Christ, and she will probably look at
you a little perplexed as to why you should ask her. It would never occur to her that there was anything
inconsistent in working to clothe the needy in the community while fervently believing in and promoting
the advent of Christ. Our Dorcas ladies see themselves as modern descendants of Dorcas, that first-century
Christian who sewed for the poor while living In hope of the return of her Lord.
Indeed, we have in the first-century Christians the best historical exhibit of the relationship of
advent hope to charitable activity for the needy. Concentration of mind and heart on the advent was never
more intense than In the decades immediately following our Lord’s ascension. We will let a professor in a
liberal seminary testify as to these primitive Christians, for we need hardly remark that it is liberals who
have heaped ridicule on the idea of a personal coming of Christ. It is liberals who were quoted in the
opening paragraphs of this chapter. But something bas happened to liberal thinking since the Atomic Era
opened. There is much talk of world’s end, a new examination of what the Bible has said on the matter, and
some rather remarkable admissions. One liberal, a professor in Andover-Newton Theological Seminary, in
discussing the sober question of world’s end, seeks to show how it is possible to anticipate the end with joy.
He declares:
“The early Christians had a program of action which they followed while awaiting the expected
early end of the world. True, it was a spontaneous rather than a systematized program. But it was far-
reaching. They riot only worshipped together and strengthened one another in the belief that Jesus Christ
would return and care for them while all things were being finished; they also liquidated their possessions,
holding earthly goods in common and serving each person, particularly the orphan and the widow,
according to need. These first-century Christians were in training for life in a new world. joy in the Lord of
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heaven and earth quite overcame anxiety about the cessation of one kind of life and the beginning of
another.
“The fact that these Christians were mistaken in their belief that some among them would still be
alive when all things were finished is unimportant. What is of primary importance for us is the fact that
they so strengthened each other in the faith that they could rejoice over the certainty they had that the world
was about to end.
And no less important for us is the cue which their conduct provides Awaiting the end which they
deemed a new beginning, they were constructively active, serving their fellows, putting human need
foremost, and thrusting property far down the scale in value. Possessions were nothing more than means to
an end, tools with which to enrich human life, tangible devices by which man could evidence his otherwise
intangible love of God.” WESNER FALLOW in The Christian Century, Sept. 25, 1946.
Further on in his article this liberal professor observes:
“Obviously the only training adequate for global dissolution is one designed to cause men to be
absorbed in worship of God and in sacrificial reapportionment of material goods, while there is time, so
that Europe and Asia and all the multitudes of the world’s miserable ones may have succor. Spirituality
needs economic implementation. Only so will Christians attain any degree of relief-to say nothing of joy-as
they contemplate the possibility of world’s end. Let the local church now attend to this!”
Whether men can be persuaded by a belief in the coming of atomic bombs to share, unselfishly,
their possessions with the needy, remains to be seen. But the record is clear, by the professor’s own
statement, that a belief in the coming of Christ caused the early Christians to share their worldly goods with
the needy. That one fact in itself is an impressive answer to the charge that ardent concentration on the
doctrine of the advent makes one blind to the needs of men and women in this present world.
Now this attitude of the early Christians has been reflected in some degree in the lives of later
Christians who have focused their hopes on the advent. When the advent pioneers in 1844 fervently
believed that Christ’s coming was very near, they, like the first Christians, developed a contempt for earthly
possessions. Many of them sold their homes. Critics of the advent movement have made sport of this as an
evidence of fanaticism, forgetful, of course, that it paralleled the experience of the first-century Christians.
Contrary to slanderous stories, Adventists in 1844 did not dispose of their property in wild abandon. The
record is clear that those who sold their possessions did so for three principal reasons: To have money to
pay all their debts, that they might owe no man anything when the end came. To have money to put into the
Lord’s treasury, so that the advent teaching might have widest circulation; and to have money whereby they
might give “alms,” to borrow the old English word they used.
That they, like some early Christians, were mistaken in believing that Christ would come in their
day is entirely beside the point. We are here considering the charge that concentration on the hope of the
advent results in complete apathy toward the present material needs of others. And in refutation is
submitted the fact that the occasions in history when Christians have been most fervent in their belief in the
advent have also been the times when they most gladly and most thoughtfully considered the present needs
of others.
Seventh-day Adventists today must confess to a lesser degree of advent fervor than the pioneers in
1844 or the first-century Christians. But we can provide some proof-for example, the Dorcas activities in
our churches that advent faith goes hand in hand with compassionate attention to the present needs of
mankind. But we need not stop with Dorcas work. Let us go beyond that to a consideration of some of the
distinctive beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists in relation to this charge that we make no contribution to the
betterment of this present world.
Our Doctrines Aid World

One of our most distinctive teachings is that good health is a part of good religion and that
therefore we should seek to learn and then to obey the laws of nature as they apply to our bodily health.
That is why we have published a vast amount of health literature through the years. And that is one reason,
also, why we have established a chain of sanitariums, for these institutions seek riot only to make people
well but to teach them how to keep well. That, too, is why we have had cooking schools through the years.
Then came the second world war. Realizing that America would soon be drawn in, President
Roosevelt called a conference of all the leading nutritionists of the country. And why? First, because
nutritional studies had finally proved beyond all question that what one cats is of tremendous importance in
building good health; second, because the country’s defense called for healthy citizens and therefore plans
must be laid to disseminate to all the citizenry instruction on proper diet.
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Now Adventists had been endeavoring, as far as their resources permitted, to do just this. That our
efforts were relatively small in relation to the whole national need of health education is beside the point.
The point is that our efforts were contributing directly to the present physical health of men and women and
to the defense of the country. Were our critics more active in this matter?
Our Fight Against Liquor

Closely related is the matter of activity against liquor. Through all their history Seventh-day
Adventists have been militant campaigners against all forms of alcoholic beverages. It is nothing unusual
for us to circulate millions of pages of temperance literature in a year. Besides, we have reinforced that
literature with vigorous campaigning for legislation against liquor.
Now, our critics, who indict us for failing to do something for the betterment of the world, would
undoubtedly agree that liquor is one of the greatest causes of human woe, bringing crime, vice, poverty,
sickness, and death---which is another way of saying that liquor is one of the greatest enemies of the state.
Evidently, then, Adventists must be making some contribution to present human welfare and toward the
preservation of the state as a result of their consistent and vigorous antiliquor campaigning. It might seem
too personal, and perhaps even embarrassing, to ask our critics how much they have done, in comparison
with Adventists, in the fight against liquor.
Take another of the distinctive features of the Seventh- day Adventist movement, the emphasis on
religious liberty. We have always believed and taught that any attack on freedom of worship is an attack on
all freedom. Hence we have been preaching, writing articles, publishing a journal, and maintaining a
department at our denominational headquarters for the express purpose of promoting the true principles of
freedom. We have not merely paid lip service to the glorious doctrine of freedom of worship and of the
separation of church and state. Instead, we have gone out and campaigned, held mass meetings, secured
petitions against dangerous bills introduced into legislatures.
For our pains we have frequently been charged with seeing danger where no danger exists-with
being alarmists. In reply we have called on history to witness that the majority of men rarely see the first
signs of danger to their liberty and that almost invariably the most dangerous despotisms have begun as
apparently harmless encroachments on the liberties of the people.
Contrary to the mistaken idea of some of our religious critics, we have not simply campaigned
against Sunday laws, though we have fought such laws because we believe they clearly violate the principle
of separation of church and state. For despite their present disguise as moral and health measures, Sunday
laws are, in essence, religious laws, as all past generations of Sunday law advocates frankly declare. No, we
have also campaigned against proposed laws that would prohibit parochial schools. We have campaigned
for the right of a noncombatant to become a citizen of the United States. We have campaigned against the
endeavors of Catholics to secure free school-bus transportation for their parochial pupils.
Perhaps the position we have taken on these various matters might easily be questioned by some,
though we think the critics considered in this chapter would agree with us on all these items except Sunday
laws. But be that as it may, in several instances the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the viewpoint we
presented. Indeed, it is a simple statement of fact that we have generally found ourselves on the winning
side when the final court appeal has been heard and acted upon.
Now it would be unpardonable boasting for a religious body to speak thus were it not for the fact
that we must call attention to our beliefs and activities in order to meet the charge that we are unconcerned
about the welfare of the country, living wholly in expectation of early entry into another world. Is it
important for the present welfare of mankind that liberty be guarded? That question answers itself. How
often since the draft of the Atlantic Charter have we heard men mention freedom of speech and of worship
as vital to an ideal world!
Have our critics done more for such freedom than Adventists have? Have they spent more per
capita on some of the campaigns just mentioned? Have they circulated more literature? We think we know
the answer they would honestly have to return to these questions.
What makes our campaigning even more significant is that in the case of at least one prominent
and repeating campaign, that against free school-bus travel for parochial pupils, Seventh day Adventists
would have stood to gain by the granting of such transportation. We have a whole system of parochial
schools, something that most Protestant churches do not have. But we have been as militant against such
transportation as we have been against Sunday laws, for illustration. And why? Because we have carried on
all these campaigns in support of principle and not of denominational advantage or expediency.
If our critics believe they are doing a great service to the state in campaigning against school-bus
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travel, for example, will they contend that Adventists are doing a lesser service to the state when they
campaign with equal or even greater fervor? Again we must observe that our interest in the advent does not
prevent us from taking an active and constructive part in serving our fellow man and defending our country.
The world is now emerging from the most devastating war in all history. War presents to the state
the greatest physical challenge to its stability and to its very life. Seventh-day Adventists do not believe
they should strike from their minds their ardent belief in the advent, even though a war rages. Indeed, they
do not believe they should forget their belief in non combatancy when the test of war confronts them.
Obviously a belief in non combatancy presents a real problem and embarrassment to any citizen who
wishes to show that he truly loves his country in wartime. And, if our critics may be taken seriously,
Adventists, with their exclusive interest in the advent, would have no desire to do anything to aid the
country in a material, practical way in connection with a war. But let us see, what actually happened.
Adventists and Military Science

The United States is the birthplace of the Adventist Church. Here are located its headquarters, and
here live more than a third of its members. Presumably, therefore, the course followed by these Adventists
in the United States may be considered as fairly representative of the spirit and genius of Seventh-day
Adventism. And what did they do when confronted with the dread challenge of war? Did they simply
withdraw to their churches to contemplate, in mystical forgetfulness of a threatened land, the sublime truth
of the advent? Did they view the war in a fatalistic way, believing that it was God’s judgment on sinful
men, and fold their arms complacently in hope of early deliverance from this evil world? By the logic of
our critics we should have done precisely this.
But what did we actually do? We freely admit that we had something to say about war as a
judgment of God. We have always viewed wars in that light. But in the second world war we seem to have
been quite outdone in the matter by chastened liberal leaders in Christendom, some of whom had viewed
the first world conflict as a holy war to usher in a better world, and who had denounced Adventists as little
better than enemies of their country.
But the important point is that although we viewed the recent war as having the quality of a
judgment of God, we saw no reason, therefore, for sitting supinely by. We did not sit by even in the years
preceding the war. Instead, as it became apparent that the world would soon be plunged again into war, we
began to institute medical cadet training in our denominational schools in America to prepare our youth for
service as soldiers in the Medical Corps of the Army. That training was specific and practical. Our youth
learned the elements of military drill and organization, of giving first aid in the field, removing the
wounded on stretchers. They were trained, and had special uniforms, without any expense to the
Government.
The whole medical cadet course was conducted along the most approved lines and in close co-
operation with the office of the Surgeon General of the Army. The foreword to the Seventh-day Adventist
Medical Cadet Manual of Instruction was written by the then Surgeon General of the United State Army,
Major General James C. Magee.
At the graduation exercises of the first Medical Cadet Corps of the Washington (D.C.) area, held a
few months before Pea Harbor, Lieutenant Colonel J. M. Welch was present to represent the Surgeon
General. In his address he said in part:
“Major General Magee, Surgeon General of the Army, whom am here to represent, has asked me
to convey his felicitations an congratulations to all your members on this occasion of the graduating
exercises of the first course of field instruction completed your corps. As an officer assigned to General
Magee’s office, I know that the objectives and activities of your group are very near to the heart, and that
he has followed with interest and admiration of training which you have been pursuing. He feels that the
aims your organization are closely tied in with the interests and objective of the medical department of the
Army, and he has thrown op to the access of your officers the facilities of the training section his office.
“Lieutenant Colonel Spruit, and, later, Major Wakeman, of the training section of the Surgeon
General’s office, have given due account and calculation to the role of the Cadet Corps project in making
their plans for the requirements of a tremendously expanded medical department. Their interest in the
accomplishments of this first Medical Cadet Corps of the Washington area has been a very special one. I
am sure also that you will not be disappointed to know that the reports on the materialization of the early
results hoped for, and the results presented here by demonstration today, have been highly satisfying.
“Your example of timely planning and unremitting effort against time and other obstacles
illustrates the spirit so sorely needed among our people at this time. In fact, the whole conception and
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method of furthering the objectives of the Medical Cadet Corps movement show an insight into the needs
of our time that runs far in advance of the foresight and determination of our average citizenry.
“In view of your religious beliefs and ideals, it is to be regarded as highly appropriate and highly
to the credit of those whose long sightedness has conceived of your organization, that you have made for
the goal of these courses the development of the individual along lines that establish his value to the Army
as a medical-department soldier. This aim of your organization shows that you are one with the medical
department of the Army in seeking to humanize war through the alleviation of suffering; it shows also that
you are one with the medical department in seeking to reduce the evil aftereffects both in the individual and
to the nation, that result from sickness and injury in war; and, foremost in the rank of our humane
objectives, it shows that you are one with the medical department in the fond hope that early and effective
training and preparation to meet the conditions of war will greatly discourage the chance of there being any
war at all. After giving you, then, these reasons for the satisfaction that you should feel in developing
yourselves along lines valuable to the medical service of the Army, I should not close these remarks
without saying that the medical department also has much cause for gratification in knowing that you and
other young men of your moral character and beliefs are preparing themselves for duty within its ranks. We
are well aware that there are important qualities quite apart from and additional to technical attainments that
go toward the make-up of the ideal medical-department soldier. These indispensable qualities of
uprightness in character, respect for constituted authority, and honorable devotion to duty, are
characteristics that young people, reared under fixed religious principles as you yourselves have been, are
very sure to have.
“And so, let me say that not only you members of the first Medical Cadet Corps, but also the
military establishment itself, is indeed to be congratulated this day and at these exercises which mark the
graduation of some two hundred enthusiastic young citizens morally sound, physically fit, and suitably
trained in the medical department tasks which face the Army of our country in its hour of need.
“Gentlemen, I wish you Godspeed and like success in your further endeavors.”
As already stated, these Medical Cadet Corps were created in our denominational schools and in
our churches in America before Pearl Harbor. We anticipated our country’s need. And we loyally felt we
should be ready to serve. At the same time we sensed the problem created by our belief in noncombatancy.
We resolved the problem by the Medical Cadet Corps that in part, at least, prepared our youth for service in
the medical branch of the armed services. Now the total of 12,000 youth thus trained was not large in
relation to the Army in the United States, but it was large in relation to the size of the Seventh-day
Adventist Church, which had an American membership at the opening of the war of less than 200,000. Of
course there were thousands of other Adventist youth besides those specially trained in our Medical Cadet
Corps who served faithfully in the medical branch of the United States armed forces.
A Happy Sequel
A happy sequel to all this occurred on the White House lawn on December 12, 1945, where, in the
presence of the highest ranking officers of the Army and Navy, the Cabinet, and other officials, President
Truman decorated Corporal Desmond T. Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist noncombatant soldier, with the
coveted Congressional Medal of Honor.
In an interview with the press after the service of decoration, Corporal Doss declared, as Adventists have
consistently declared through the years, that our noncombatant soldiers, though technically classified as
conscientious objectors, should really be described as conscientious co-operators. We do not take a
negative attitude toward our country in time of crisis. We display a real and an immensely practical concern
for our fellow man in connection with the crisis of war. [Many other decorations for valor and for
outstanding service were given to Seventh-day Adventist noncombatant youth in the armed services during
the war.]
Seventh-day Adventist concern for the material welfare and physical needs of their fellow man is
not confined to our homeland. That is evident from the medical missionary work we conduct in far lands. A
vital part of our whole mission program is the medical care of the sick. Clinics and hospitals are found
alongside chapels in Africa, China, the South Sea Islands-in fact, in almost every land. In some corners of
the earth the only medical care the natives have ever received has been at the hands of Adventist
missionaries.
But medical aid is not the only aid that our missionaries give to native peoples. The spiritual help
we seek to give, and which we believe is of vast importance, is not here referred to. Very material aid, the
kind that our critics declare we are uninterested in giving, even to those in our own land, much less to
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natives far away, is the kind referred to.
The Testimony of a Scientist

A few years ago William C. Groves Research Fellow in Social Anthropology of the Australian
Natural Research Council, made a trip to certain Seventh-day Adventist missions among the islands of the
Pacific Ocean. He did not take this trip out of a love for missions, certainly not a love for Adventist
missions, for he had no relation to them, and up to that time knew little about them. Rather, he was
interested in studying the subject of the effect of European culture upon the native culture, and he simply
chose certain Adventist missions because they were easy of access in the mandated Territory of New
Guinea. He tells of the common criticism of missions that he had so frequently heard, and then relates how
he set out on a Seventh-day Adventist schooner-for our island missions have their own boats for traveling
from island to island. The first thing he noticed was that the native crew were treated decently and that
there was an “atmosphere of cleanliness and quiet discipline.” He continues:
“I was no friend of the Seventh-day Adventists. I mean I had no special desire to further their
cause. I simply wanted to see just what was happening, and how; to evaluate the work from the point of
view of present native social and economic welfare and future development.
“I knew something of the natives and the conditions of their lives-the impending disruption of
their social organization, the reputation of the place for licentious living, and such things. 1 had gathered,
too, a fairly comprehensive idea of the place ethnographically, from the published results of the very
careful survey carried out by the government anthropologist in New Guinea in 1927. It seemed, on the
evidence available, that the people of these islands were a decadent people-victims of that intangible
malaise or inertia that comes, from causes beyond our present comprehension, upon primitive peoples, in
their early contact with European cultural influences, and that frequently expresses itself in, or is associated
with, a tragic condition of depopulation that may ultimately spell racial extinction.
“The formula upon which the prescriptions to revive or resuscitate such peoples are based,
however, is something like this. Create new wants; develop new interests; provide a new set of social-
reaction stimuli; and thus bring the wavering wills back to their former strength-but with a changed, a new,
field in which to work.
“With a sincere desire to see the people of Mussau, by any possible means, responding to some
such prescription, and a particular interest in the precise nature of the component parts of the prescription
(which was, I assumed, being offered by the Seventh-day Adventist people), I went to Mussau.
“From the moment we dropped anchor at Emira, where we met ‘old’ Naphtali, a fine, honest,
hard-working, true Christian, Fijian teacher, and saw the whole of the island’s population hurriedly and
excitedly gathering together at the point on the beach where our dinghy was landing us-from that moment
of enthusiasm and joyous welcome-I knew that the ‘Seventh-day’ mission ‘had’ these people. Knew,
unmistakably with my very eyes, that here was no decadent people; here no racial malaise such as I had
recently seen in parts of New Ireland.”
Being a good scientist, he wished to check for certain on the matter. He tells us:
“I soon got off alone amongst the natives themselves, in their settlement. From every angle I
approached them-trying suggestion, cajolery, ridicule, upon individuals and groups. Fast they stood, fast for
the new life, with no regrets, and, as far as I could see, no possible ill-effects on their social or economic
lives. In fact, in the latter connection I found that under Naphtah’s leadership they had abundance of food,
including varieties previously unknown.”
Then he frankly relates what lie had formerly thought of these particular missionaries. ‘I had
always, without any real or genuine knowledge, fancied Seventh-day Adventism a thing of frock-coated
gloom.---That only made the more startling and impressive his findings as to the happiness of the natives
who had been brought from paganism into Christianity by these missionaries. But his report goes on from
this to a still larger survey of Seventh-day Adventist missions as they relate to constructing a mission
village and creating schools for the natives. After paying his compliments to the white missionaries who led
out, he had something to say for the native teachers, who are trained as quickly as possible to give the
mission work a close contact with the people. Said he:
“I was particularly struck with the faithfulness of the Solomon Island teachers-such black-skinned,
joyous types as Oti, whose genuine Christian belief was apparent in his every action. Truly the S.D.A.
stations will become, have ‘ become already, the focal points of new interests, the radiating centers of new
life.
“And what does it all mean to the people of Mussau? For those who seek immediate spiritual
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results the crowded services at both stations should be sufficient.

“There is little left of the primitive culture; that, as an anthropologist, I learned. But there’s
nothing to be lamented in that, providing the people have found some satisfactory new substitute forms of
life for the lost elements. And I believe that in their economic lives, the mission is working along right lines
by demonstrating the possibilities of varying their crops and making more regular and certain their food
supply.
“Improved housing and village hygiene may be expected as a result of the mission’s example and
teachings; what, indeed, may the S.D.A. Mission not accomplish amongst these people, to the lasting credit
of the mission and the salvation of what was a decadent society, if it proceeds along lines of enlightenment
and understanding and allows of continuity of policy without undue interference from authorities outside?
“What a unique opportunity has the S.D.A. Mission at Mussau. starting in these days of educational
enlightenment, to show all other organizations the way!”
This report, which was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 1, 1934, speaks for itself. A
like report might be made on similar Adventist mission stations that dot hundreds of South Sea Islands.
And from there the scientist might go to other dark places of earth and find the same hopeful results from
our missions.
It hardly needs to be remarked in this connection, that we sincerely believe the mission activities
of other churches produce most heartening results. But that is beside the point. The question at issue is
whether Seventh-day Adventists make any real contribution to the material and physical needs of mankind
so that the present world may be a better one in which to live. And in partial answer to that question is
submitted the testimony here quoted.
Our Support of Missions

And how well do we support our mission work? Do we give a pittance in comparison to the per
capita giving of great religious bodies, many of which are dominantly liberal in theology, as our critics are?
Were it not for the fact that the evidence to refute a baseless charge must be brought forth. I would hesitate
to make comparisons, lest 1 should appear boastful. The undebatable facts are that Seventh-day Adventists
contribute far and away the largest amount per capita for missions of any religious body. If anyone doubts
this, let him consult the comparative statistical tables prepared annually by the Foreign Missions
Conference of North America.
We are not rich people. Most of us are wage earners. Yet we give the most per capita to missions
of all religious bodies. If the testimony of the anthropologist quoted may be taken at face value, then
Seventh-day Adventists with their heavy per capita mission gifts are making a real contribution to the
world.
Granted that we do not attempt to improve the world politically and economically by campaigning
on various economic and political issues, or by seeking to tell rulers and legislators what they should do in
matters of state. [Our campaigning against liquor and religious legislation may perhaps be considered
exceptions to this general statement. However, in the case of liquor we have put our major emphasis in an
educational campaign to individual men and women, seeking above all else to secure their personal
allegiance to the principle of abstinence. As regards our campaigning on religious legislation, I would say
that our endeavor here is not to tell government what it should do in the secular realm, but to protest its
activity in the religious realm.] But our failure to do this is not because we are blind or callous to existing
social and political evils, or because, as our critics charge, we are fatalistically committed to the belief that
with the advent near, nothing need be done. Surely our critics know that through the long years there have
been devout religious groups who have been as averse to direct political action for reform as Adventists
ever could be, and yet who have not been distinguished by a belief in the nearness of the advent. And why?
Generally because they believed the church should make a different approach to the problems of the world.
That is the position Adventists take. Whether we feel we have little or much time ere the day of God, we
believe that the Christian church should make a distinctive attack upon the world’s evils, using distinctive
weapons.
The Christian religion teaches that the cause of all the world’s troubles is the sinful heart of man.
All evil activities of men and society are but sores on the surface of the body of mankind, a body that is
infected with the virus of sin. Only the gospel of Christ can provide the antidote for the poison released by
this dread virus. In holding this view of the world’s ills, Adventists are only holding the classic viewpoint
of Protestant Christendom, and long before that, of primitive Christians.
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The Heart of the Problem

And because we hold this view we consider that we would be recreant to our duty if we failed to
focus our efforts on the heart of the trouble, the sinful heart of man. We look back to the first century and
note, for example, that the apostles did’ not launch political campaigns to remove slavery from the Roman
Empire. Though Paul twice stood before Caesar, there is nothing in the record to suggest that he capitalized
the occasions for any attempt at political reform. He even wrote in his epistles as to how “servants”-our
English Bible euphemism for slaves should give obedience to their “masters.” But Paul and all the early
Christians drove ‘ forward with a mighty attack on sinful hearts. And as that attack succeeded, slavery had
to recede. A beautiful illustration of this is suggested by Paul’s letter to Philemon as to how he should
receive back his runaway slave Onesimus.
Speaking of slavery, it is an interesting fact that most of the leaders in the advent awakening of the
early 1840’s, out of which Seventh-day Adventism grew, had been militant abolitionists. One of these men,
Joseph Bates, was chided by his abolitionist friends because he was devoting all his time to promoting the
advent doctrine, and no longer took part in their antislavery activities. He replied that he was as much
opposed as ever to slavery, but he believed that in calling on men to turn from all evil and make ready to
meet God, he was going to the heart of all the evils that afflict society. While preaching in the slaveholding
State of Maryland, Bates was accused by a slaveholder of campaigning to take his slaves from him. Bates
replied that this was not so, that he had come to take both him and his slaves for the kingdom of God. This
was essentially the position of all the Adventist leaders.
And did slaveholders give up their slaves as they responded to the advent preaching? Though we
have no lengthy records of advent preaching in the South (early Adventism developed in the Northern
States) we do have the record of one campaign far south in the year 1844. The account tells, among other
things, how a slaveholder, immediately upon accepting the teaching that he must be ready for the advent,
freed his slaves. There is nothing strange about this. How could a man, in sincerity, make ready to meet
God face to face and continue to grind down the face of the poor in slavery!
The saintly founder of Methodism, John Wesley, is often credited with having saved England from
a revolution such as overwhelmed France. A vast contribution, indeed, to the life of a nation. But did he
save England by political campaigning, or anything akin to that? No. He saved England from revolution by
revival-a vigorous preaching of the gospel to the hearts of men.
Where We Differ With Liberals

Of course we realize that in the last generation or two the liberal wing of Christendom has swung
far away from the ancient view of the sinfulness of man’s heart as the cause of all earth’s troubles. As
discussed in succeeding chapters on the rise and fall of the idea of progress, every other cause except sin
has been set forth as the reason for the troubles of mankind. Now, if bad housing, or poor wages, or
illiteracy, for example, are the root of man’s troubles, and man has inherent possibilities of improvement,
then it makes sense for the church to focus first attention on these conditions and to campaign before rulers
and legislators for political reforms. It always makes sense to attack prime causes by attempting to
influence those who can remove the causes. If we are not too sure of a world beyond, if we doubt the reality
of sin or its dread effects, and, accordingly, if we discount the significance of the gospel because it is a
remedy for something we are not sure is very real, then certainly we are consistent in concentrating on the
political approach to the solution of mankind’s problems. We do not say that all in Christendom who
invoke political action subscribe to this series of “if,” but we do say, on the strength of the evidence
presented in the preceding chapters, that the segment of Christendom that has been increasingly devoted to
political action for a half century has been dominated by the reasoning just set forth.
But Seventh-day Adventists do not believe in the inherent possibilities of perfection in man, or
that his evil ways are primarily due to bad environment. We believe that something is the matter with man
himself that leads him to evil as naturally as the sparks fly upward. We do not think, therefore, that men
will become heavenly in their lives if only their working conditions can be made ideal and poverty be
removed from their skies. We remember that the Bible describes the ancient city of Sodom as having
fullness of bread and abundance of idleness. Yet with such fullness of bread and freedom from grinding
toil, plus homes by a placid, sun-kissed sea, they lived in vice and bequeathed to posterity their very name
as a synonym for depravity.
Adventists believe that the root of the trouble is the sinful heart. Hence we feel we are doing
precisely what Christians ought to do when we concentrate our attention on applying to this malady the
only remedy that we believe is effective, the grace of God as dispensed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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How could we make a better contribution to the welfare of mankind here and now? Does not the apostle
Paul assure us that “godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is,” as well as
of “that which is to come”?
11. Our Teaching That the Advent Is Near?

FROM ITS BEGINNING the advent movement has been distinguished by its preaching of the
nearness of the advent. For a hundred years we have declared, in the words of Scripture, that “it is near,
even at the doors.” Critics have not been slow to note this fact and have framed one of their most plausible
objections upon it. The objection runs thus: -You have preached for a hundred years that the advent is near.
But the advent has not taken place. Don’t you think it is about time to admit that you have been mistaken?”
First, let it be noted that the critic seeks to discredit our forecast simply because, after a century of
predicting, the forecast has not yet come true. There is generally implicit, also, the thought that Adventists
therefore, are a fanciful lot of dreamers who have wrongly interpreted Bible prophecy, whereas the critic
stands on solid ground. By his very indictment of our forecast the critic would have it appear that he is not
guilty of making predictions concerning the future of the world, or that if he has made any, they have come
true. But is that so? Most of our critics, or at least the most vigorous of them, are spokesmen for other
religious organizations in Christendom. Is it true that religious bodies in general, with the rather notable
exception of Adventists, have refrained from forecasting the future? Or if they have forecast in any degree,
that the predictions have come true? The answer to both questions is No.
The facts that will be presented in chapters 12 and 13 are here anticipated a little. They deal with
the rise and fall of the idea of progress, and reveal clearly that the Christian churches in general have long
been forecasting a certain definite end to our present world by the coming of an earthly millennium. That
forecast was old when the advent movement began in the 1840’s. Furthermore, that forecast of world
regeneration was challengingly placed in opposition to the prediction of impending world conflagration as
soon as the latter began to be preached by our Adventist forebears. Finally, that prediction of world
regeneration, so generally believed in Christendom by the opening of the nineteenth century, was tied to
Bible prophecies and given a strong flavor of time setting.
Admissions of Critics in the 1840’s

It is a fact of history, easily verified, that our critics in the 1840’s did not generally question the
soundness of our rules of prophetic interpretation which led us to conclude that certain great time
prophecies were ending and that therefore far reaching changes impended for the world. On the contrary,
our opponents a century ago were often free to admit that they likewise believed the prophecies were
ending.
One theologian, who is described on the title page of his book as “professor of ecclesiastical
history in the Newton Theological Institution,” wrote this in 1844, in comment on the Millerite movement:
“We need not wonder that the minds of many have, within a few years, been greatly agitated by an
expectation of the speedy fulfillment of certain predictions in the book of Daniel. The way for this was
prepared by some of our standard English writers on the prophecies, men of former ages, venerated for
their piety and their erudition. Dr. Scott, in his notes on Daniel 8:13,14, after quoting with approbation, the
remarks of Lowth and Newton, adds, ‘No doubt the end of the two thousand and three hundred days, or
years, is not very distant.”
“Instead, now, of being offended, or of looking scornfully at those who have only carried out and
applied according to their best understanding, the principles taught by bishops and learned commentators,
let each one for himself, first of all, see to it that he be prepared to meet, without dismay, whatever may
occur, and to stand before his final judge. And then, let him, as his situation and circumstances may permit,
endeavor, with fervent prayer, and diligent study, and holy living, to ascertain what God has revealed, and
what He has enjoined.” - IRAH CHASE, Remarks on the Book of Daniel, pp. V, VI.
The Revelation George Bush, in a series of letters to William Miller, set forth the generally held
view that the world was approaching an earthly millennium. His words show how the prophetic time
element was involved in the popular view, and how it was challengingly placed in opposition to the
Adventist predictions. Bush, who was professor of Hebrew and Oriental literature in New York University,
wrote thus to Miller:
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“While I have no question that well-informed students of prophecy will admit that your calculation
of times is not materially erroneous, they will still, I believe, maintain that you have entirely mistaken the
nature of the events which are to occur when those periods have expired. This is the head and front of your
expository offending.
“The great event before the world is not its physical conflagration, but its moral regeneration; and
for one I am happy to think that, by your own limitation, the question is so soon to be put to the test of
indisputable facts. But even if years or centuries were yet to intervene, I should still be strong in my grand
position, that you had mistaken the nature of the events.
“Although there is doubtless a sense in which Christ may be said to come, in connection with the
passing away of the Fourth Empire, and of the Ottoman power, and His kingdom to be illustriously
established, yet that will be found to be a spiritual coming in the power of His gospel. Such is the dominant
faith of all Christian communities at this day, and to the tribunal of time, as the only arbiter, they willingly
refer its final decision.” - GEORGE BUSH, Reasons for Rejecting Mr. Miller’s Views on the Advent,
Pages 11,12. (Second Advent Library, Number 44, April 15, 1844)
The evidence is clear, therefore, that the advent movement, with its predictions on world destiny,
arose at a time when the rest of Christendom held a dogmatic view concerning the future of the world, and
tied that forecast to Bible prophecy, even to declaring the nearness of the impending world change.
But has that change, that end to our present world represented by an earthly millennium, taken
place? No! And how long has this forecast of moral regeneration been made? Evidence to be presented in
chapter 12 shows that the prediction began to be made early in the eighteenth century, and has been
increasingly proclaimed ever since. Though the prophetic time element has been gradually drained out of it,
the prediction of a better world, a really new world, has continued to be preached as an event almost at
hand. Indeed, the millennium has rather generally been described as being not much farther away than the
elusive prosperity of the early depression years, which was always declared to be ‘Just around the corner.”
But the millennium is not here! That much is certain. In 1844 Professor Bush was very willing to refer “to
the tribunal of time, as the only arbiter,” the “final decision” of the controversy between Adventists and
Christendom as to whether “physical conflagration” or “moral regeneration” lay ahead for the world.
If the whole matter were dealt with solely in a negative way, the indictment of Adventists, as set
forth in the opening paragraph of this chapter, could therefore be dismissed merely by the remark that our
critics have had no better fortune with their predictions. But the negative goal of merely silencing critics is
not our chief interest. To establish positive truth is the important thing.
Early Adventists Held Restricted View

It may freely be admitted that at the very outset most Adventists, or Millerites, as they were then
called, held too narrow and restricted an idea of God’s plans and purposes for the closing period of earth’s
history, which is known in prophecy as the “time of the end,” or “the last days.” The Millerites thought that
the coming of Christ would follow immediately on the ending of the last of certain great time prophecies,
that of Daniel 8:14. In this they were mistaken, and for two reasons: They wrongly understood the phrase
“then shall the sanctuary be cleansed,” and they failed to see that while the Bible speaks of the nearness of
the advent when the great time prophecies have ended, the Scriptures do not warrant, much less demand,
the belief that the advent is to take place immediately at the close of these time prophecies. On the contrary,
the Bible makes clear that certain events are to unfold in “the time of the end” to set the stage, as it were,
for the grand climax of the advent. That the founders of the advent movement should have failed to see all
this in perspective proves only what has been proved numerous times before in Christian history-that men
rarely see a new truth in its proper perspective at the very outset. The best illustration of this is found in the
question the apostles put to our Lord after His resurrection: “Will Thou at this time restore again the
kingdom to Israel?”
A Fallacy Exposed
There is a fallacy in the kind of reasoning that would seek to prove false our century-old preaching
of the nearness of the advent. The fallacy is this: The mere passage of time is not in itself the measure of
the validity of a prediction. We must also take into account what has happened during the period of time
under discussion. Do those happenings give cumulative support to the prediction, or do they give the lie to
it?
In our case the question can be given a more precise and definite quality. We have done more than
simply predict, in general terms, the nearness of the Second Advent of Christ. We have diligently studied
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the Scriptures to learn all that they have to say about the events connected with the 1ast days” of earth’s
history. The result has been that we have become specific in our forecasts as to the shape of things to come.
Some of these forecasts were originally made when appearances were heavy against their coming to pass.
Hence, the question to be answered is this: Has the passing century provided not only general support for
our basic prediction that the advent is near, but also specific support for our definite predictions concerning
develop merits that should take place in the days immediately preceding the advent? What judgment does
the -tribunal of time,” as “the only arbiter,” render?
First, as to our general prediction of the nearness of the advent. No one today will question that the
world not only gives the lie to the idea of progress, but stands in such a precarious position that the end of
the world, as we know it, may be only a little distance away. But what of our specific predictions regarding
events that should just precede the advent? Let us examine some of them:
A Series of Forecasts
1. We forecast the revival of the Papacy, declaring that all the world would wonder after the beast
that had the deadly wound and did live. But when we began to make such forecasts the Papacy was at low
ebb. The pope lost the papal states in 1870, and made himself a voluntary prisoner in the Vatican. But today
the Papacy has revived in a way that astounds the world. Diplomats ‘of almost every country in the world
are found at Vatican City.
2. We forecast increasing religious apostasy in Christendom. But at the time we began to make
such dire declarations most of the churches were still firm in their orthodox beliefs regarding such primary
truths as the deity of Christ and His atonement for our sins. The world mission program was just beginning
to take vigorous shape. There were those who even predicted that soon the world would be evangelized.
Yet we forecast increasing apostasy. And today? I need hardly present the evidence in support of the charge
of apostasy. That evidence is too commonly known now. There has been nothing short of a revolution in
the views of an increasing number of the clergy. The blood atonement is made of none effect, the deity of
Christ denied, and the personality of God questioned.
3. We forecast troubles in the realm of capital and labor. Such a prediction hardly looked
plausible, certainly riot when we stressed it as a distinguishing mark of the days just ahead. There were
many willing to admit that some troubles might yet lie ahead in the economic world, but that these would
gradually disappear under the steadily improving conditions in the world. But today we witness a world in
which one of the most prominent causes of unrest and revolution is the tension between capital and labor.
No one in the nineteenth century ever dreamed that the world would be confronted as it is today with a
ferment in the economic realm so strong that it threatens to crack the very foundations of stable
governments.
Our Forecast Regarding Freedom

4. We forecast the decline of freedom. We declared that this decline, particularly in the realm of
religious freedom, would find its climax in an edict that, no one might buy or sell unless he conformed to
certain demands of a religion-political combine. But through the latter years of the, nineteenth century, and
through the first years of the twentieth, the idea of democracy and the rights of man was becoming more
and more the accepted view in every part of the world. It was difficult even to imagine that the day would
come when that tide toward democracy would be reversed. But it is not difficult to do so today.
In very recent decades we have been witnessing strange new forces at work in world thinking. We
may speak of the Four Freedoms, but no one doubts that we have come to the day when the doctrine of the
rights of man has suffered a serious blow. There is increasing government by edict. The very troubled state
of the world seems to favor a more arbitrary kind of rule. We have even witnessed the strange phenomenon
of not being able to carry on those age-old practices of buying or selling except as we conformed to very
rigid edicts. We do not say that this fulfills the prophecy. It does not. But it does illustrate the temper of the
times and the vast change that has overtaken the world, particularly America. We have not yet come to the
fulfillment of this forecast based on Revelation 13! But no one today questions an Adventist when he
declares that the trend is clearly in the direction of fulfillment.
5. We forecast the coming into prominence, if not dominance, of the United States, in world
affairs. We declared that the second beast of Revelation 13 is the United States, and that that power “caused
the earth and them that dwell therein to worship the first beast,” and caused all to receive a mark, and to
buy and sell only by its permission. Hence, the time would have to come when the United States would
assume a prominent, indeed, a dominant, place among the nations. But when we first began to preach on
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Revelation 13, the United States was very far from prominence. The latter decades of the nineteenth
century were filled with civil war and painful reconstruction. Even into the early years of the twentieth
century it could hardly be said that the United States had acquired a striking world prominence. But today!
Yes, today, with the second world war now past, the United States stands out not only prominent but
dominant in the world. The future must provide the fulfillment of the last details of Revelation 13. Here it
need only be shown that the passing years have provided increasing and striking support for our forecast.
6. We forecast great wars, climaxing in a final world conflict, while at the same time we declared
there would be much talk of peace and safety. The usual response of opponents was that our forecasts were
fantastic. Indeed, it is difficult today, even for Adventists, to realize how fantastic our forecast of world
wars was considered by most people. Sometimes, if we pressed our case with vigor and showed certain
evidences of preparation for wars, the evidence was brushed aside with the remark that there had always
been wars, and that probably there would be some troubles’ in the future. In other words, there was nothing
significant in our preaching.
But what could not be seen by those whose eyes were blinded by the false light of an earthly
millennium was that a new approach to war was developing in Europe. Universal conscription began to be
adopted in the latter years of the nineteenth century. At the same time modern science, which was making
such phenomenal strides, began to be harnessed to the chariot of Mars’ thus vastly increasing the potential
horrors of war.
However, as late as the spring of 1914, few took seriously our forecast of world conflict. The
majority were content, rather, to fix their eyes on the peace palace at The Hague. Even after the first world
war there were those who still held to the fond hope that the world finally had been rid of evil forces and
made safe for democracy. But the second world war followed, which brought us to the age of the atomic
bomb. And that statement provides the setting for our next forecast.
Forecasts of Fear and Confederation

7. We forecast that the time would come when men’s hearts would fail them for fear, and for
looking after those things that are coming on the earth. Obviously, this forecast was viewed by men in the
same light as our other forecasts, as a fanciful piece of predicting. Certainly, if the world is growing better,
as men believed, what possible reason could there be for a failing heart and fear of the future? Our earlier
Adventist books contain meager proofs in support of this forecast. The time had not yet come. Perhaps it
has not fully come today. But at least the time is here when it would be difficult to describe the state of
men’s minds more accurately than in the prophetic words of our Lord as to a failing of hearts for fear of
what is coming. The first atomic bomb seems to have shattered not only Hiroshima but also whatever
confidence and assurance of the future there remained in the souls of men.
8. We forecast a final confederation of some kind on the part of the nations, with the Papacy very
central to the confederacy. True, we have not been dogmatic on this or gone into detail, nor the prophecy
from which we draw this forecast is by confession difficult of full understanding. But that a confederacy
involving 0w Papacy is mentioned in the prophecy have have been sure, and have forecast accordingly.
Now, the world about us was not unwilling to entertain the idea of a parliament of the world, such as
Tennyson had predicted with poetic license. But that a confederacy would be formed in the dark setting that
we forecast-the very idea was ridiculed.
We admit that no such confederacy has been formed. There are still some events to take place
before the end. But it is a significant fact that a great endeavor is being made today, much more earnestly
than after the first world war, to create some kind of confederacy. Indeed, the cry is now raised that we
must unite or perish. It would be difficult to think of the creation of an international confederacy under
gloomier conditions than that. Who ever dreamed a generation or two ago that such a cry would be raised?
But it is raised today and with earnestness and hard logic.
And is the Papacy standing near by in the shadows? Listen to this statement by the editor of the
most widely quoted religious weekly in America, who was writing shortly before the close of the war and
just before President Roosevelt’s death:
“Sometimes it is said, by those who sense some of the foreboding realities of the days after
organized fighting has ceased, that revolution is in the air. Perhaps. But more likely it is simply chaos. That,
it often seems to us is probably one reason for Mr. Roosevelt’s strange attraction to the Vatican. Has he not
been persisting in this diplomatic courtship in the face of widespread disapproval by the American people
simply because he feels that he must find some factor of stability to which to attach American postwar
policy in Europe, and because the Vatican seems to be about the only such stable factor short of Russia?” -
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The Christian Century, November 15, 1944. .

While the editor just quoted thinks the Vatican is hardly as stable as it “seems,” this does not
minimize his penetrating conclusion as to why the powerful United States seeks to, maintain a close
relationship. Formerly our forecast that some kind of confederacy involving the Papacy would develop in
the very last hours of earth’s history was considered fantastic, and we could point to no historical
development that even gave plausibility to our prediction. Today, as we draw into what we believe are the
last of the last days, we hear the cry raised for confederacy and we see the Papacy as one of the few rallying
points around which any international group could unite. This much is present history.
Other forecasts might be cited, but these are sufficient to let us view this advent movement in the
perspective of a century. In the setting of these predictions and their amazing fulfillment, it is pertinent to
call attention to certain general conclusions that heighten the significance of the evidence presented:
Conclusions From the Evidence

1. No one now laughs at our most doleful predictions. Do we realize the full force of this fact?
Time was when Adventist predictions of doom and destruction for the world evoked only a laugh from the
great majority of people. They might have thought us sincere, but they also thought us silly; so they
laughed. Some years ago a leading literary journal included in one of its articles a sketch of an Adventist
preacher. The writer declared that every time this preacher opened his mouth, doom came forth through his
black whiskers. It was all supposed to be funny and sophisticated. No one today is writing sketches like that
about Adventist preaching. The very silence of those who formerly laughed is the loudest testimony that
our preaching no longer sounds laughable.
2. To laugh at Adventist declarations of doom would be to laugh at statesmen, scientists,
educators, and other eminent men, who actually outdo us in painting a dark picture of the future. The proof
in support of this statement is legion.
3. Eminent men, in painting their dark picture of the future, often use language almost identical
with that which Adventists have used in painting the final scene of earth’s history. They speak of a new
dark age, of chaos, of the end of the world as we know it, and of the complete destruction of mankind.
Indeed, a listener not carefully versed in technical distinctions might almost think he was hearing
an Adventist minister speak. For example, in the official report on atomic research we find this forecast:
“Should a scheme be devised for converting to energy even as much as a few per cent of the
matter of some common material, civilization would have the means to commit suicide at will.” HENRY
DEWOLF SMYTH, Atomic Energy for Military Purposes, p. 224.
New Meaning to Scriptures

4. Certain statements of Holy Writ take on new force and possible meaning. There are three in
particular, the first of which reads thus:
“And the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be
judged, and that Thou should give reward unto Thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that
fear Thy name, small and great. And should destroy them which destroy the earth.” Revelation 11:18.
If there is one idea that more than any other is brought out repeatedly in all the present discussion
of war, it is that of wholesale destruction. Indeed, the word destroy, or destruction, seems to be the
distinguishing one in every description of the present and future nature of modern war. Never before in the
history of the Christian Era could these prophetic words have had quite the force that they have today:
“Destroy them which destroy the earth.” The second statement is this:
“The cities of the nations fell.” Revelation 16:19. We have generally thought of this in connection
with the great earthquake described in the preceding verses, and perhaps this is the full explanation for the
fall of the cities of the nations. But it is not unreasonable to think of this cataclysm in the setting of the
several verses preceding, which speak of the battle of Armageddon. God often uses nation against nation to
bring His judgments upon men. In all the military reports of the plans for future war, in the light of
improved weapons of destruction, no fact is more vigorously stressed than that the cities of the nations are
to be the chief objects of attack.
This much therefore seems sure, that when the next war comes, the chronicler of it will be able to
describe one phase of it in the prophetic words: “The cities of the nations fell.” The third scripture reads
thus:
“Looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire
shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat.” 2 Peter 3:12. Probably no passage of
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Scripture has been referred to more frequently since the opening of the Atomic Era than this statement by
Peter. And why? We shall let a professor in a Chicago divinity school answer. He quotes Peter’s words and
declares:
“Much of the current interest in these words stems from the fact that they are so pat as a prediction
of the specific manner in which the world may now be destroyed.”-WINTHROP S. HUDSON, The
Christian Century, Jan. 9, 1946.
Adventists do not believe that Peter’s words will meet their fulfillment in man-released atomic
energy. We believe that God will set the fires of the last great day. But we think it is most .significant that
the world has come to a time when men find no better way to describe the fearsome prospects of the
immediate future than in terms of a Biblical prediction of world’s end in blazing fire.
Why Should God Delay Longer?

5. The fact that the whole world is shattered and bleeding and bankrupt, with mutual suicide as the
logical end of all f tit tire war planning and with no moral power sufficient to stem the tide, means that we
have a new and most powerful argument in behalf of our doctrine of Christ’s coming. If man reveals no
power to solve the tragedy of our world by any human device, then the Adventist solution, the supernatural
intervention of God by His appearing in glory, becomes the only hope. And if man’s practice of iniquity
has brought him to the point of completely and fully demonstrating to the universe that the wages of sin is
death, even world suicide, then the Adventist belief in the nearness of Christ’s coming stands revealed as
the only reasonable doctrine.
6. A century ago, when the preaching of the literal soon coming of Christ began to be proclaimed,
our opponents scoffed. They agreed that prophetic times were ending, but they were sure that the
millennium was soon to be ushered in. They were confident that moral regeneration, not physical
conflagration, was soon to transform this earth. “To the tribunal of time, as the only arbiter,” they willingly
referred the controversy for “final decision.” Today we can say without reservation that the tribunal of time
has resolved the controversy and has passed a vigorous judgment.
We do not know what the opponents of William Miller and the pioneer Adventists would say if
they could rise from their graves to survey a wrecked world, and to listen to the statements of eminent men
who declare that world suicide threatens us. But we do know what their spiritual successors are saying! A
professor in Andover-Newton Theological Seminary writes of “global dissolution,” and of the grave
possibility of “planetary extinction,” in view of the atomic bomb and the failure of mankind to devise a way
of peace. Then he adds:
“A new heaven and a new earth, when all things that are will have passed away and old things will
have been made new-these conditions are possible only after world’s end. What the nature of this end will
be no man can say.
“Christians normally reckon with eschatology [the doctrine of last things, world’s end]. It was
Christian abnormality which ignored eschatology for so long. The normality which the atomic blasts over
Japan brought back to Christian believers consists of the rightness, the correctness, of not only
contemplating but also expecting world’s end.
“Perhaps the next few summers may lengthen into a few more summers of opportunity. Again, no
man can say. But let men search the Scriptures and ponder the facts of science, the vagaries of world
politics, the economic, emotional and industrial condition of the peoples-conditions pointing sharply toward
finish, soon or a little later.” - WESNER FALLAW, in The Christian Century, September 25, 1946.
Winthrop Hudson, who was quoted a few paragraphs back in comment on the statement in 2 Peter
3, concludes his discussion of the atomic bomb with this statement:
“We must stop smiling complacently at the way in which the Millerites once played upon the fears
of the credulous. This time the final explosion can too easily occur. This time it is not the credulous who
believe but the incredulous, not the hysterical but the coldly scientific. The task of the church is to make
their fear real to the great mass of the people-to make the great mass of the people recognize the full
dimensions of the peril in which they stand.” - The Christian Century, January 9, 1946.
How strangely different these statements sound from those made so confidently a century ago as to
the future of the world. And these statements are typical of what a host of religious leaders are now saying
with regard to the probable end of our world. True, some of them, including Winthrop Hudson, think t hat
by some heroic endeavor we may pull the world away from the brink. But none of them are very sure.
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All World Developments Reinforce Our Belief

As already stated, Adventists do not believe that the world is to end by man-released atomic
energy, though we view atomic bomb destruction as a sign of the last days. Hence, in one sense, we think
that religious leaders are today as definitely in error regarding the end of the world as they were in Miller’s
day. But that does not minimize the significance of their change of view concerning the future of our world.
If, at the end of a century of preaching the nearness of the advent, we can show that not only world
conditions but the spiritual successors of our original opponents testify to impending destruction for this
sinful earth, we need not be embarrassed by the mere passage of the years. Who knows but that God in His
long-suffering may have tarried, not willing that any should perish! Suffice it to say: Every development in
the world reinforces our prediction of Christ’s soon coming. Every calamity in the world, and lastly the
calamity of atomic power, cries out for the advent as the only sure solution of the tragedy of a bankrupt
world. We have not followed cunningly devised fables!
7. One question only remains to be answered. How did we succeed in forecasting so accurately
these times? It was not a lucky guess, nor a shrewd analysis of obvious happenings, So far from being
obvious, or even probable, the whole fabric of our predictions was originally held up to ridicule as the
product of morbid minds that refused to see the evident proofs of world progress. The very wise men in
every walk of life saw an entirely different picture of the future.
Where did we gain our prophetic insight that enabled us to foretell so accurately what is now
current history? The answer is, From the Bible. We have staked our claim to being preachers of truth, to
being correct interpreters of the prophecies, on the forecasts concerning last-day world conditions which we
have made publicly for long years from the platform and through our numerous publications. The “tribunal
of time” has passed its verdict on the accuracy of our interpretation of prophecy. Only one great prediction,
the last of the series, remains unfulfilled-the Second Advent of Christ.
When the matter is placed in this setting, it becomes evident that the mere passage of the years has
not weakened, but rather strengthened, our doctrine of the soon coming of Christ, because the passing years
have strengthened the supporting structure on which the doctrine is reared. Those passing years have
provided a kind of proof in behalf of our prophetic teachings that only the years could provide!
12. Origin and Growth of the Idea of World Progress

ONE OF THE POINTS that has been in debate between Adventists and others is whether the
world is growing better or worse. The trouble, generally, with our discussion of this subject is that we fail
to deal with the matter in terms of the long perspective of history. The question of whether the world is
improving or not is very much larger than a discussion, for example, of comparative crime statistics for a
decade. This question is of the essence of the controversy that Bible-believing Christians in general, and
Adventists in particular, must wage with liberal churchmen and secularists who have taught that the world
is improving.
If the world, by some grand law of progress, is gradually moving toward perfection and holiness,
why preach the sudden, supernatural appearing of Christ to bring in a new heaven and a new earth? But if
the world 1ieth in wickedness,” even as it lay in John’s day, and is providing only increasing proofs of
wickedness in devising new war plans of mutual destruction, then the Second Advent doctrine becomes not
only eminently meaningful but urgently necessary. The issue at stake is precisely that.
In order to see the question in true historical perspective let us trace through the centuries this idea
that the world is growing better. [In the first part of the historical sketch, which extends to page 157,
historical data will be repeatedly drawn from a remarkable work entitled The Idea of Progress, by J. B.
Bury, late regius professor of history in the University of Cambridge.]
The idea of progress, using the term in a large and loose sense to include both material and ethical
progress, is not an ancient or medieval idea, but a modern one. The ancients did not believe in any law of
inevitable progress toward perfection. They held a rather pessimistic, fatalistic idea of cycles, wherein
nations rise, flower, and decay. That was the best paganism could offer.
View Held During Dark Ages

The church of the Dark Ages did not hold to any doctrine of unending progress, and for certain
definite reasons. First, the medieval scholars looked to ancient Greece for wisdom. They viewed Greek
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culture and learning as the high point in world history. Hence they were in no mood to generate the idea of
progress. They tacitly, if not explicitly, held to the doctrine of retrogression.
Again, the medieval church viewed man as a fallen creature infected with original sin and blighted
with total depravity: whose end was the grave and hell, unless the grace of God intervened. A world filled
with such creatures could not be viewed as making progress toward any better level, either materially or
spiritually.
Finally, the medieval church believed that the world was the object of a directly intervening
Providence who had marked out the limits of man’s stay upon earth, and had given an element of finality to
the world by setting a day of judgment and consigning the earth to flames when that day came.
As a sure protection against any impious attempt to teach otherwise, the church required all, on
pain of damnation, to accept the authority of the church in all matters of doctrine and belief. Reason, as an
arbiter of truth, or as the means of discovering truth, had no standing. Men were supposed to use the faculty
of faith rather than reason.
Says the historian J. B. Bury: “It may surprise many to be told that the notion of Progress, which
now seems so easy to apprehend, is of comparatively recent origin.” - The Idea of Progress, Page 6. He
observes immediately that while men of former ages had some ideas of man’s advancement from savagery,
this does not constitute a real doctrine of progress:
“You may conceive civilization as having gradually advanced in the past, but you have not got the
idea of Progress until you go on to conceive that it is destined to advance indefinitely in the future. It is not
till the sixteenth century that the obstacles to its appearance definitely begin to be transcended and a
favorable atmosphere to be gradually prepared.” – Ibid., Page 7.
In the same connection he declares: “As time is the very condition of the possibility of Progress, it
is obvious that the idea would be valueless if there were any cogent reasons for supposing that the time at
the disposal of humanity is likely to reach a limit in the near future. “-Ibid., Page 5.
Descartes, a brilliant French mathematician and philosopher, who was born at the close of the
sixteenth century, brought forth two germinal ideas that were to produce fruitage in skeptical and rational
opposition to the basic medieval concepts. Descartes declared that reason is supreme and that the laws of
nature are unalterable. To set up reason is to dethrone arbitrary authority, and to hold to the invariability of
nature’s laws is to do violence to the medieval concept of a superintending Providence. Bury observes that
Descartes’ views were “equivalent to a declaration of the Independence of Man.”-Ibid., Page 65.
Seeds of New Ideas Planted

Thus in the first half of the seventeenth century were planted the seeds that were to bring forth a
harvest of new views and theories, particularly the idea of progress.
There also began to develop, both on the continent and in a school of thought that challenged the
idea of the supremacy of Greek learning, with its corollary that Greece provided the golden age and
succeeding generations have witnessed only degeneracy. The position began to be taken that the present is
equal in intellect and learning to any former era. It was only one step from this to the position that the
present is superior to the past.
As the leaven of rebellion against Catholic Church authority and teaching began to work, new
ideas as to the nature of man developed. Instead of being a creature born for destruction because of original
sin, man began to be viewed by rationalists and skeptics as inherently good. This fundamental change of
view paved the way for the idea that man is capable of improvement if only given an opportunity. Says
Bury:
“With the extension of rationalism into the social domain, it came about naturally that the idea of
intellectual progress was enlarged into the idea of the general Progress of man. The transition was easy. If it
could be proved that social evils were due neither to innate and incorrigible disabilities of the human being
nor to the nature of things, but simply to ignorance and prejudices, then the improvement of his state, and
ultimately the attainment of felicity, would be only a matter of illuminating ignorance and removing errors,
of increasing knowledge and diffusing light.”-Ibid., Page 128.
Cornerstone of Modern Science

The centuries following Descartes saw the rapid growth of the belief in the invariable order of
nature. That belief became the very cornerstone of all the developing sciences. A definitely mechanical
theory of the universe took shape; it began to be viewed as a vast machine, moving in all its intricate parts
in harmony with unchanging and unchangeable laws. It may be added that this so-called mechanistic view
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of the universe grew in popularity among scientists and skeptics until the opening years of the twentieth
century. The essentially godless quality of it was its belief in the constancy of law without a belief in the
constancy of a great Lawgiver who is personally planning the destiny of the universe. To discuss the factors
which have operated to oppose and today to weaken the popularity of the mechanistic theory would lead us
afield from our present theme. Suffice it to say that while rigid mechanism is now at a discount, the
scientific belief in the unvariableness of the laws of nature is stronger than ever.
Now the growth of the idea that nature, through her unchanging laws, is really in charge, played
havoc with the doctrine of a directly superintending Providence, as that doctrine was held by all Christian
bodies. The Christian view that man is in the hands of God, who offers him salvation against a
predetermined day of judgment, had to be abandoned by those who accepted the new views of nature and
her laws. There was no longer a closed system, with man’s destiny compressed into an earthly cycle of
foreordained and limited length, and then world destruction. Man was not in the hands of a great and
offended God, who might mercifully work miraculously to save him. Rather, he was on his own, in a world
where miracles were declared to be contrary to nature’s laws, his destiny dependent wholly on his own
resourcefulness, his hope for betterment contingent upon his ability to master obstacles and to square with
the laws of nature. And, anyway, he needed no supernatural aid, lie needed no salvation, for he was
essentially good at heart and needed only improvement. Indeed, the very emphasis on law, to the exclusion
of the Lawgiver, increasingly tended to banish the idea of God. That tendency, ever aided by the atheistic
bent of certain minds, greatly spread atheism on the Continent, and nurtured Deism in England.
Concentration on Present World

The effect of all this was to cause men to concentrate their thoughts on this world, and this world
alone, where man, as i lie captain of his soul and the master of his fate, was to work wit his own destiny.
No element of finality, such as a day of judgment, was to cut short man’s planning for the future. The
indefinite years lay ahead. Man had made progress up to this point. Why should he not continue to
progress? While all who went along with the scientific and skeptical trend did not become godless or
atheistic, the inevitable tendency was to minimize, increasingly, the fact and the significance of God, until
He became a vague, faraway, foggy picture. As the significance of God decreased, the apparent importance
of man increased. He became the center of everything, and his own endeavors and ingenuity the solution of
everything.
The early nineteenth century saw philosophers attempting to formulate the so-called laws of
progress, on the theory that “the history of civilization is subject to general laws, or, in other words, that a
science of society is possible.” - Ibid., Page 307. Foremost in this group was Auguste Comte, a French
philosopher, who is credited with having “laid the foundations of sociology.” - Ibid. Bury thus summarizes
Comte’s view of history:
“The movement of history is due to the deeply rooted though complex instinct which pushes man
to ameliorate his condition incessantly, to develop in all ways the sum of his physical, moral, and
intellectual life. And all the phenomena of his social life are closely cohesive, as Saint-Simon had pointed
out. By virtue of this cohesion, political, moral, and intellectual progress are inseparable from material
progress.” - Ibid., Page 293.
As already stated, the doctrine of progress naturally led to the minimizing of God and the
glorifying of man. It is no mere coincidence, then, that Comte, who was so prominent in promoting this
doctrine, devoted his last years to writing a ponderous work on “social reorganization,” which “included a
new religion, in which Humanity was the object of worship.” Ibid., Page 307.
Political Movements Reflect New Views

A practical application of this philosophy of progress was the creation of such political movements
as socialism, and later, of communism. By organizing the state in harmony with certain ideals of progress,
the leaders of such movements naturally believed they could hasten the day of an ideal material world, and
then stabilize it at that point. Others who did not endorse state-enforced speed toward perfection, but who
nevertheless considered progress desirable, began to reveal their views in a school of thought known as
liberalism. This term, defined politically, describes the idea that the status quo is not the ideal, that the slow
advance of mankind up to the present should be allowed to continue without any hindering laws or customs
of former days. Hence liberalism, politically, has been a ferment in modern states, urging the betterment of
man’s estate by providing him full liberty of opportunity and action, but eschewing state socialism. [The
term in liberalism also has a religious connotation, which will be discussed later.]
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The nineteenth century, with its increasing developments in the field of discovery and invention,
provided another impetus to the idea of progress. The wizardry of science was remaking the world and
lifting man to greater comfort. Machinery was taking the place of backbreaking labor, and medical science
was winning amazing victories over the ills that have long beset men and sent them to untimely graves.
And ever there was the prospect of still greater wonders to be produced. Here was truly something new in
the history of the world. If mankind had not already crossed into the land flowing with milk and honey, at
least the Jordan had been rolled back as the feet of the scientists touched the waters. Nothing remained but
to go in and possess the goodly land. It is easy to see how men could come to confuse scientific progress
with the larger idea of controversial progress and the perfectibility of man. Bury thus summarizes this
phase of the development of the doctrine:
“The spectacular results of the advance of science and mechanical technique brought home to the
mind of the average man the conception of an indefinite increase of man’s power over nature as his brain
penetrated her secrets. This evident material progress which has continued incessantly ever since has been a
mainstay of the general belief in Progress which is prevalent to-day.” - Ibid., Pages 324, 325.
Evolution Theory Provides Capstone

The capstone to the doctrine of progress and the perfectibility of man was placed by Darwin in
1859, when he published his epochal work Origin of Species. Before his time the idea of evolution had
been held largely as a philosophical speculation, though some evidence in the scientific world had been
alleged in support of it. Darwin set forth his theory as the key to unlock man’s long history and to unfold
his vast future. In The Descent of Man Darwin explored more fully the subject of evolution in relation to
man, coming to this statement in the closing paragraph:
“Man may be excused for feeling some pride at having risen, though not through his own
exertions, to the very summit of the organic scale; and the fact of his having thus risen, instead of having
been aboriginally placed there, may give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future.” - Page
707.
Evolution Principle Widely Applied

Spencer was the great philosopher of evolution, even as Huxley was its militant exponent in the
arena of controversy. Spencer sought to apply the principle of evolution to all realms of life, in an attempt
to prove that socially and ethically, as well as biologically, man’s course is upward and onward. He had
held these ideas some years before Darwin published his Origin of Species. Darwin’s work came at the
psychological moment to provide Spencer with apparent scientific support for his philosophical views.
Bury declares:
“The receptive attitude of the public towards such a philosophy as Spencer’s had been made
possible by Darwin’s discoveries, which were reinforced by the growing science of paleontology [the study
of fossil organisms] and the accumulating material evidence of the great antiquity of man. By the
simultaneous advances of geology and biology man’s perspective in time was revolutionized, just as the
Copernican astronomy had revolutionized his perspective in space. Many thoughtful and many thoughtless
people were ready to discern-as Huxley suggested-in man’s ‘long progress through the past, a reasonable
ground of faith in his attainment of a nobler future” -The Idea of Progress, p. 342.
We need not here turn aside to discuss the fact that the theory of evolution, strictly speaking, can
be used as an argument for pessimism in regard to man’s future. For example, some philosophers have
pointed to the increasingly complex life of highly civilized people as entailing troubles and distresses
unknown to the simple savage. This is a restatement of the position of Rousseau, who long before had
promoted the idea of the inherent goodness of man and the inherent badness of civilization. Bury quotes
Huxley as expressing in his later years no very hopeful views as to the future of man, if even the best of
modern civilization is any measure of man’s development. Then Bury adds:
“I have quoted these views to illustrate that evolution lends itself to a pessimistic as well as to an
optimistic interpretation. The question whether it leads in a desirable direction or not is answered according
to the temperament of the inquirer. In an age of prosperity and self-complacency the affirmative answer
was readily received, and the term evolution attracted to itself in common speech the implications of value
which belong to Progress.”-Ibid., p. 345.
Integral Part of Modern Thought

Thus has the idea of progress become a part of the thinking of modern man, a “general article of
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faith.” Nowhere in his remarkable book, The Idea of Progress, does Bury reveal that he believes the idea
has been proved true. He observes that in our day “indefinite Progress is generally assumed as an axiom”
by all those who write on social science, but that the “law” governing it “remains still undiscovered.” He
places the word law in quotation marks to indicate, evidently, that he is not certain whether there is such a
law. He even thinks that this dogma may be superseded someday by another theory of man’s destiny. [He
wrote before the gathering clouds of World War H could be seen. A new view of man’s future is
developing, as will be seen in the next chapter.] But the point of interest to us is that the idea of progress
became dogma for modern man. We close this survey of the secular factors that contributed to the adoption
of the idea, with these words from the final paragraph of Bury’s work:
“Looking back on the course of the inquiry, we note how the history of the idea has been
connected with the growth of modern science, with the growth of rationalism, and with the struggle for
political and religious liberty. The idea took definite shape in France when the old scheme of the universe
had been shattered by the victory of the new astronomy and the prestige of Providence was paling before
the majesty of the immutable laws of nature. There began a slow but steady reinstatement of the kingdom
of this world. The otherworldly dreams of theologians which had ruled so long lost their power, and men’s
earthly home again insinuated itself into their affections, but with the new hope of its becoming a place fit
for reasonable beings to live in. We have seen how the belief that our race is travelling towards earthly
happiness was propagated by some eminent thinkers, as well as by some ‘not very fortunate persons who
had a good deal of time on their hands.’ And all these high-priests and incense-bearers to whom the creed
owes its success were rationalists.”-Ibid., pp. 348, 349.
Modern Paganism
The ancient pagans believed that this world was the one place on which to fasten their interests
and in which to find such happiness as might be obtainable. Whether this was a good world or not, they did
not know; they only knew that it was the best and only world of which they could be sure. Hence the
dictum: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. The rationalists of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries skeptics, agnostics, deists, atheists-who were the developers of the idea of progress, simply turned
men back again to this earth. They did so by undermining the Christian doctrines of Providence and
heaven, and by picturing our world as a place that is in process of steadily becoming a more ideal abode.
The nineteenth century poet Swinburne shockingly reveals in the following sacrilegious lines how
belief in the potentialities of material progress had in it a pagan, godless quality:
“Thou art smitten, Thou God, Thou art smitten; Thy death is upon thee, O Lord. And the love-song of earth
as Thou did resounds through the winds of her wings Glory to Man in the highest for Man is the master of
things.”
From this summary of secular causes that produced the earth-bound idea of progress and man’s
perfectibility, let us turn to consider a theological idea that has gained ascendancy in the last two centuries,
paralleling and reinforcing the secular idea of progress. It is the doctrine of a temporal millennium,
introduced into Protestant prophetic thinking by Daniel Whitby, an Anglican divine, in 1703. He set forth
the view that the thousand years of Revelation 20 is to precede the Second Advent of Christ. During this
millennium the nations will learn righteousness, the Jews will return to their own land and be converted,
and all will be bliss. The resurrection that the Bible declares will take place at the beginning of the
millennium, he spiritualizes away, making it a spiritual resurrection of men dead in trespasses and sin. The
outpouring of the Divine Spirit is to produce a kind of spiritual Second Coming of Christ. He is to come to
this earth in spirit to abide in the hearts of men. Thus the Christian should look forward, not to a
cataclysmic climax of a sinful world, but to a gradually improving society iii a slowly but surely developing
new heavens and a new earth freed of all sin.
Paralleling of Two Theories

Here is a theological theory of the future of man parallel to that set forth by the rationalists. The
difference is in the means by which world betterment will be brought about. How one theory may have
affected the other, there is no way of telling. But this much we know, that theories, the same as men, do not
live in a vacuum; they live in an interacting society. Here were two theories, having an essential point in
common -that the world is headed toward improvement. The exponents of one theory of progress could
hardly fail to be aided by the exponents of the other. And in the minds of many people the two theories
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could easily tend to blend.

This postmillennial theory made rapid headway in theological circles, so that by early nineteenth
century it was quite generally accepted by Protestants. When Miller and the other advent preachers began
to stir men with their preaching of a premillennial, literal coming of Christ, theological opposition was
chiefly built on the contention that world improvement, not world destruction, lay just ahead. The
Revelation George Bush, in one of a series of letters to Miller, declared:
“The great event before the world is riot its physical conflagration, but its moral regeneration.
“This is the common and prevailing belief of Christendom, and 1 have no doubt the true one.”-
Reasons for Rejecting Mr. Miller’s View on the Advent, Second Advent Library, Number 44, Pages 11, 12.
Bush was correct in declaring that this was the common and prevailing belief in Christendom. An
examination of religious works published at that time amply support his statement. For example, the Baptist
author and preacher, John Dowling, who was a most active opponent of Millerism, wrote in a much-quoted
work that was intended to expose Miller’s advent teachings:
“The doctrine I hold in relation to the millennium, and for which I think I am indebted to the
Bible, is-That the reign of Christ on earth will not be a personal but a spiritual reign. That it will be
preceded by the overthrow of Popery, Islam, Paganism, and all false systems. That it will consist in the
universal prevalence of righteousness and true holiness, throughout the whole world. That this glorious age
shall pass away and be succeeded by a brief but dreadful period of wickedness [when Satan is loosed for a
little time], after which the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” -
An Exposition of the Prophecies, pp. 167, 168.
New View Anchored to Bible at First

Though Whitby and the theologians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who accepted fits
post millennial doctrine, drew a wrong belief front the Scriptures, they were nevertheless firm believers in
the Bible. They did not even attempt to spiritualize away the whole doctrine of the advent. They believed in
a literal coming of a personal Lord and Savior from heaven. Their error lay in placing this event at the
wrong end of the thousand-year period and in declaring that during this period the world would be
converted to Christ, including the Jews. They taught a false doctrine of world betterment that outdid even
the rationalist picture of improvement, but they did it within the framework of a divinely ordained plan and
with an actual, supernatural advent of Christ as the ultimate climax.
By the opening of the twentieth century the doctrine was undergoing a significant change.
Christendom quite generally continued to believe, and perhaps more ardently than ever, that the world was
headed toward holiness and that the temporal millennium was not far away. But beyond that point the
doctrine had become confused and blurred. The whole idea of the advent had become spiritualized so that
no clear teaching was set forth regarding events at the close of the millennium. In deed, the very word
millennium itself had rather become synonymous with a vague, indefinite period of time. In short, the
supernatural aspects of the doctrine were quite drained out, and the doctrine of world betterment as the
theologians set it forth became not too sharply distinguished from the doctrine as set forth by secular
philosophers and reformers.
And why had this come about? The answer is found in a trend that set in, late in the nineteenth
century, in Christendom. When crystallized, this trend became a definite and finally a controlling school of
thought known as modernism, or liberalism. The way was prepared for this by the acceptance on the part of
an ever-increasing number of clergy, of the higher critical view of the Bible. In brief, this view is that the
Bible is a work of uncertain authorship, much later in composition than originally believed to be, which
fades from the historical to the mythical in its earlier portions, particularly the books of This view
obviously robbed the Bible of most of its unique authority. Certainly the believer in it discovered shortly
that he no longer stood on the historic Protestant platform of the supreme authority of the Bible. Instead, he
found himself setting up reason as a judge of inspiration. With that transition made, almost anything could
follow in the way of change in theological beliefs. And very much did follow, and almost immediately.
Modernism Defined
By the end of the nineteenth century the public was dazzled with the accomplishments of the
scientists, who declared that they were discovering the true keys to the universe. It would have been
strange, indeed, if there had not developed in the church a desire to revamp ancient beliefs to modern
discoveries. That desire, expressed through those who had imbibed higher critical teachings, is what
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produced Modernism, or liberalism. Probably there is no simpler way to describe theological liberalism
than as a movement within the church which seeks to make religion appear intellectually respectable by
adjusting it to scientific teachings.
Now, the first precept of the scientific world is the unqualified invariability of natural law. But the
acceptance of that precept by theologians meant the abandonment of belief in miracles. Science has no
room for miracles. The elimination of miracles from the Bible robbed it of its uniqueness and power. The
wondrous things of Scripture had to be explained on naturalistic grounds. The record of Christ’s life on
earth began to look very different when read through Modernist spectacles.
As we have already seen, the major scientific dogma of the late nineteenth century was the
evolution theory, which was being exploited as a master law governing all aspects of life. Modernism
sought to harmonize the Bible with this theory. The result was that the opening chapters of Genesis were
explained away as poetry, allegory, or plain myth, depending on the mood of the explainer. Genesis
presents a picture of perfection at the beginning, followed by the introduction of sin and the fall, from
which man can be lifted up only through the redemptive death of Christ. Therefore the Modernists, in
harmonizing Genesis with science, quite completely changed their view of man. They saw him as the end
result of a slow evolution upward. His undesirable qualities, hitherto attributed to sin, became simply the
remnants of his brute ancestry. Furthermore, if man has made this much progress upward, why not believe
that he will continue to progress toward perfection? Thus churchmen were traveling the same path in their
reasoning as the rationalists had already traveled.
Man Increases, God Decreases

This idea of man’s perfectibility, coupled with an acceptance of the dominance of natural law, led
on logically to the idea of the increasing importance of man and the decreasing importance of God. In
theological minds, even as in scientific, the classic idea of a personal God definitely and directly controlling
the affairs of the universe began to fade rapidly. Now if God is a personality fades to what can man turn?
The answer is lie can turn back on himself. He can worship man.
Skeptical onlookers and some so-called advanced thinkers in Modernist circles were quick to point
out that humanism as the worship of man is known-was the logical end of the Modernist road. And indeed
to that very end came the extreme wing of Modernism in the 1920’s. This was the high-water mark of the
doctrine of inevitable progress for man as developed through theological channels.
A logical corollary of this whole Modernist adjustment of religion to science was the “social
gospel,” which began to be actively preached near the opening of the twentieth century. The pioneers of
this preaching declared that their endeavor was to apply the principles of Christianity to social conditions,
in the confident hope that the kingdom of God could be set up in this world.
Thus the church began to nurture a social reform movement, which though springing from a
different source than socialism or political liberalism, had a not dissimilar goal in view-the creating of an
ideal present world for man. However, as Modernist churchmen became increasingly earth bound in their
thinking, some even moving into humanism, the social gospel began to sound strangely like the secular
gospel of social reform. Not infrequently Modernist ministers openly allied themselves with left-wing
secular reformers, feeling, that they had a common goal in their reform program. This was inevitable.
Liberalism Turns to the Left

With the supernatural quite drained out of their theology, young Modernist preachers took hold of
the social gospel of a gradually idealized present world as the only gospel that really made sense for them.
They could no longer preach the classic doctrine of a sure and certain heavenly home, either pre-millennial
or postmillennial in time. From force of early training, a Modernism that finally skirted the shores of
humanism may have originally steered its bark by studying the heavens, but it soon took to determining its
course by observing the earthly torches of secular philosophers and reformers, especially those lights
visible from the larboard side.
It. may willingly be admitted that the social gospel has been preached in sincerity by high-minded
men, and that the beautiful ideals of Christ have colored the arguments for earthly reforms, without
minimizing any feature of the analysis just made. The one point to be made clear is this, that the idea of
earthly progress leading toward perfection developed in our modern period until, by the opening of the
twentieth century, it had become a dominant belief among secularists and liberal churchmen.
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Plausible Claims of World Progress

Indeed, as the world entered the present century, these secularists, and even more so the liberal
religionists, were ready to proclaim that all history, especially the history of the Christian Era, supported
their boast of progress. They contrasted the present with the early centuries of the era, declaring that the
Roman Empire provided a picture of decadence and dissipation never exceeded, and perhaps never equaled,
in succeeding centuries. They contrasted the enlightened present with the Dark Ages, when an apostate
Christianity committed millions of martyrs to the stake. Yes, and these believers in inevitable progress were
particularly interested in contrasting the present with the world of the last few centuries. They pointed to
the frightful squalor and lawlessness that plagued London and in lesser degree other great English cities
within the last two hundred years, to say nothing of the immorality that flourished in the English court in
the seventeenth century. They cited the dissoluteness of the court of Louis XIV, and the wretched condition
of the populace that produced the French Revolution. They even pointed to America, supposedly free from
much of Europe’s ills and vices, and showed that this land was formerly plagued with religious riots,
including burning of churches and murder, with fatal dueling, with slave markets, and with drunkenness
that was so widespread that it produced, in reaction, the temperance movement of the early nineteenth
century.
All this and more the believers in world progress were presenting as proof that the world by AD
1900 had made great advancement. They might have been embarrassed that the progress, socially and
morally, had really gotten under way only recently, but they explained this on the ground that man’s
possibilities of perfection awaited the improvement of the environment. And was it not in the latter part of
the nineteenth century that most of the social, hygienic, and educational legislation had been enacted?
Thus both secularists and liberal religionists reasoned and exulted as they entered the twentieth
century. They had no time for the Adventist minister who declared that the “whole world lies in
wickedness” and that God’s judgments upon this evil world were soon to descend.
NOTE. As stated at the beginning of this chapter, Bury has been followed in the main outlines of
the sketch of the growth of the secular idea of progress. I believe his viewpoint to be well supported. But no
aspect of history is treated uniformly by historians, to say nothing of other writers who may deal with the
matter. This is true regarding the history of the idea of progress. The chief difference in view as to the
forces that operated to produce secularism and the theory of man’s inherent worth, has to do with the part
played by the Protestant Reformation.
Catholic writers, and some others, contend that Protestantism is chiefly responsible for the modern
secular era and the erroneous idea of man’s worth. This contention, I believe, is quite invalid. What the
Protestant Reformation did, among other things, was to, break the authority of the Catholic Church over
men’s minds and to substitute another authority, the Bible. When the church no longer controlled men’s
thinking, a fraction of Europe’s population turned to the Bible, the remainder responded favorably to the
new voices of skeptics who were appealing to reason as the only authority for men’s lives. Luther and other
Reformers warned of the dangers of reason and appealed to men to turn to the Scriptures. But the
Reformers, though they held on to some of the evil ideas of church and state union, never called upon the
state to hold men to the church to the degree that Catholicism had done. The inevitable result was that men
who formerly from fear had failed to reveal their skeptical views now began to let those views be widely
known. Only in this sense may it be said that Protestantism contributed to the secular trend of post
medieval days. But to admit this is to bring no indictment of Protestantism; it is simply to admit that the
granting of liberty of thought involves giving men the liberty to think wrongly if they desire to.
The reader who wishes to pursue further the subject of the history of the idea of progress is
referred to the following works, which make significant reference to the matter.
John Herman Randall, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940.
Carl F. H. Henry, Remaking the Modern Mind. Wm. B. Erdman’s Publishing Company, 1946.
Arnold S. Nash, The University and the Modern World. Macmillan Company, 1944.
R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History. Oxford Press, 1946.
13. Collapse of the Idea of World Progress
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S0 STRONG was the idea of progress, so fully had it become an article of faith in the creed of all classes of
people, that even the shadows of impending world war in 1914 did not darken the faith. We see what we
wish to see, and men everywhere wished only to see proofs of progress. The mere thought of war between
civilized nations was ridiculed, even as late as the spring of 1914.
So tenacious was the idea of progress that it actually maintained the control of men’s minds
through the four years of war. And by an easy rationalization! We are waging a war to make the world safe
for democracy! It is truly unfortunate that we must engage in so horrible a strife, but it is a war to end war!
Like the fabled phoenix, a new world will arise from the ashes of the old, purged of the evils of the past in
the purifying fires of the great conflict! A League of Nations will make sure the brotherhood of man, and
all will be well!
Here applies the cynical observation, generally attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that man is
fortunately a rational being, and thus he is able to provide reasonable proofs for whatever he wishes to
believe or to do. Surely a faith that was strong enough to remove a mountain of world war out of the path of
the idea of progress was no mean faith!
Peace Pacts Strengthen Idea of Progress

The will to believe that the world war of 1914-18 was only a purging fire and not a destroyer of
world progress, was further strengthened by a series of peace pacts that were signed in the next decade. At
Genoa, in 1922, some thirty nations adopted a resolution against engaging in war one with another. At
Geneva, in 1924, the assembly of the League of Nations drew up a pact binding the League members to
arbitration in the settlement of controversies. At Locarno, in 1925, France, Germany, and Belgium made a
compact never to make war on one another, but to resort to arbitration. At Havana, in 1927, the Pan-
American Congress adopted an antiwar resolution. And as a climax came the Pact of Paris, or the Kellogg-
Briand Pact, so named from the initiators of it-America’s Secretary of State, Frank B. Kellogg, and
France’s Premier, Aristide Briand. This pact called on the signatories to outlaw war “as an instrument of
national policy in their relations with one another,” and to agree that “the solution of all disputes or
conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never
be sought except by pacific means.” This is the essence of the two short but sweeping articles that
constitute the treaty.
This treaty to outlaw war was signed originally by the representatives of fifteen principal nations
(and later by almost every civilized country) amid the tumultuous acclaim of the secular and religious
press. The editor of Good Housekeeping described Secretary Kellogg as “the Man Who Ended War,” and
declared: “For the first time in the history of the world, world-wide and everlasting peace is to be had, if not
exactly for the asking, at least by fighting for it before our treaty-ratifying bodies.”. - September, 1928.
The High Point of Hope and Confidence

The editor of The Christian Century, who attended the treaty signing ceremonies in Paris and
wrote an eyewitness account, penned these glowing words:
“One staggers at the attempt to set forth the significance of the doings of this day. But again, the
deed cannot be doubted. I saw it done. I heard the words spoken. I looked for an hour into the grave faces
of the men who were empowered to sign. I handled the finished pact. I read anew the unambiguous words
of renunciation. I looked at the signatures and seals. And I cannot do otherwise than command my pen to
write these words: “Today international war was banished from civilization.” Then on prudent second
thought he added:
“If this pact does not end war, it would be better for humanity had it never been signed.... Never
did the spirit of man undertake a risk so great. It must mean a new world, a world of permanent peace on
the basis of justice. And if it does not mean that, it will mean nothing less than a new epic of the fall of
man.” - The Christian Century, Sept. 6, 1928.
A fair interpretation of the widespread comment, of which the two cited are typical, permits the
conclusion that the idea of world progress had not only survived the war but bid fair to flourish more
abundantly than ever, under the protecting banner of universal peace. Traveling with increasing momentum
for two centuries, this humanly satisfying doctrine of progress had surmounted the first great obstacle in its
path, and now who would be so foolhardy as to challenge the truth of it? Had not the nations laid aside
forever the weapons of war!
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The Old Order Begins to Change

But the war had shaken the structure of the world much more completely than even the most
sagacious of men seemed to realize. New forces had been let loose. The old order was breaking up. The
truth of this began to dawn on men when the world sank into an appalling economic depression in the early
1930’s. The material good things of life were disappearing on every side, and in many instances destitution
and chill penury were taking their place. The grisly side of life came increasingly to the surface. Men in all
lands grew restless. The League of Nations had failed to live up to the hopes reposed in it. That failure
stood out sharply against the background of economic darkness that had settled over the earth. Political and
idealistic failure might be ignored if creature comforts abounded, but not if they departed. Nor had the
depression more than spread its heavy pall before strange sounds were heard in the darkness, strident voices
calling for new nationalistic ardor, and the clangor of armament factories. For the roots of World War II run
back at least to the early 1930’s, if not to the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
As early as the spring of 1933 a prominent religious editor, Paul Hutchinson, in discussing the
forces currently operating on the church and on society at large, could make this sweeping statement of
belief:
“Here, then, is my credo: 1 believe that we are living in a. day which sees the final destruction of
the illusion of inevitable progress which Herbert Spencer and the Victorian evolutionists fastened upon the
prewar liberalism of the West. Even in America, where adventitious aids made a cloudless optimism seem
reasonable as long after the World War as the campaign speeches of Mr. Hoover in 1928, man now finds
himself confronting the possibility of chaos quite as much as of triumph, and discovering that catastrophe is
much closer than either a dependable peace or a just, and therefore stable, world order.” The Forum, April,
1933.
A Liberal Challenges Liberalism

Even before 1933 warning notes were sounding in church circles regarding the false heaven in
which men were living. In the spring of 1931 a leading Modernist spokesman declared, in an article entitled
“Let Liberal Churches Stop Fooling Themselves”:
“Liberal religion has a dogma and it views the contemporary world through the eyes of this
dogma. The dogma is all the more potent in coloring opinion because it is not known as a dogma. The
dogma is that the world is gradually growing better and that the inevitability of gradualness guarantees our
salvation.
“The real fact about our civilization is that it is flirting with disaster. . . .
‘Meanwhile the church lives in a comfortable world. It sees the sorry state of our civilization and
yet it does not see. We can see only what our dogmas and preconceptions permit us to see. . . .
“The romanticism of the liberal church is revealed not only in its view of history but in its estimate
of man. It holds, on the whole, to a Rousseau-istic view of human virtue. It has made an easy identification
of this view with the Christian estimate of man as the child of God. The result is that it fails to understand
the diabolical aspects of human life.” -REINHOLD NEIBUHR, The Christian Century, March 25, 1931.
How One Man’s Mind Changed

Niebuhr, who has just been quoted, is unquestionably one of the most challenging figure in the
contemporary religious world. The transitions in his own thinking give us an insight into the changing
viewpoint of multitudes of Liberals who had been offering incense at the shrine of world progress. From a
Detroit pastorate he came, in 1928, to a professorship in Union Theological Seminary, New York, easily
the most prominent Modernist seminary in the United States. As a pastor he had been an ardent preacher of
the social gospel. In New York, he actively gave his support to what would be described as left-wing
reforms. He even ran on the socialist ticket and for a time was editor of a socialist paper. All this was
incidental, of course, to his seminary teaching. In 1932 Niebuhr published a book entitled Moral Man and
Immoral Society, and followed this, early in 1934, with another volume, Reflections on the End of an Era,
Commenting, in 1935, on these two works, Paul Hutchinson declares:
“The two [books] have rocked Protestant church life. . . . There is no other current religious
thought which has made the thought and effort of the last hundred years appear so structurally futile. . . .
“Niebuhr’s very titles will suggest the direction in which his mind has traveled. He started with
civilization in need of some process of cleansing-that is to say, religious socialism. Then he became
oppressed with a sense of the ineradicable tendency to evil in society, so he attempted to drive a line
between man who, as individual, is a pretty good chap, quite promising as a candidate for salvation, and
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man who, as a member of a group, is an irredeemable savage-’moral man and immoral society.’ But it took
him less than two years to discover that such a distinction would not stand the test, so that now we hear his
voice of doom at ‘the end of an era,’ declaring that man is quite as immoral as the society in which he
herds. “-Scribner’s Magazine, October, 1935.
In the year 1939 there appeared in The Christian Century, most representative of
nondenominational journals in America, a series of articles entitled “How My Mind Has Changed in This
Decade.” Each article in the series of thirty-four was written by a different religious leader. The editor
observed:
“We believe that there has been coming, in the past decade, a radical and significant change in the
thinking of Christian scholarship and leadership. For many this change is 4n process; . . . but all of us are
aware that ours is a period of intensive and profound transition. There is naturally much bewilderment.
Many Christian people are walking as if in a kind of mist.”-The Christian Century, October 4, 1939.
Vast Changes in Decade

He asks the question, “Why was the past ten-year period taken as particularly significant?” and
answers it thus:
“The answer is that it was in this period that a whole new theological outlook had emerged. The
liberalism which had been for nearly a half-century the common presupposition of Christian scholarship
had been for the first time effectively challenged in this decade. The earlier inferences which had been
drawn from the higher criticism of the Bible had come under critical review. The New Testament presented
itself in a new aspect, calling for a radical revision of the prevailing liberal conception of the origin of
Christianity. It was in this decade that the optimism which had been associated with the doctrine of
evolution was challenged as superficial and unwarranted. A halt had been called to the progressive
capitulation of theology to the categories and presuppositions of science. The culture of Western
civilization was under fire as based upon a philosophy which was now declared false.
“All this was a post-world war development. It issued from springs which began flowing in the
first decade after the war, and were at first regarded as mere sporadic signs of reaction due to European
chaos and despair. In the second post-war decade, however, this development assumed formidable
proportions as a highly sophisticated attack on the foundations of liberal theology, and the hitherto
dominant liberalism was put on the defensive.”-Ibid.
Most of the thirty-four contributors to The Christian Century series expressed some degree of
change of belief. The confident Liberalism of a former day is ‘gone. The dogmatism is largely missing.
Perhaps most marked is the rediscovery by many of these men of the perversity of the human heart. Sin, a
term almost outmoded by Liberals for a generation, has come back into their vocabularies as describing a
grim and grisly reality. Gone is the foolish notion that material advance implies also moral advance.
Probably the most vigorous in expressing his viewpoint is Reinhold Niebuhr, whose earlier views have
already been quoted. His contribution to the symposium is entitled “Ten Years That Shook My World,” and
contains this withering indictment of Liberalism:
“Liberal Christianity, in short, tended to follow modern culture in estimating both the stature and
the virtue of man. It did not recognize that man is a spirit who can find a home neither in nature nor in
reason, but only in God.
“For this reason, the simple reinterpretation of the Kingdom of God into the law of progress, in the
thought of liberal Christianity, is an equally serious betrayal of essential insights of the Christian faith to the
prejudices of modern culture. Obviously there is progress of all kinds in human history, including progress
in aerial bombing and the effective use of the radio for the dissemination of political lies. There is progress
from immaturity to maturity in every field of endeavor. But there is not a single bit of evidence to prove
that good triumphs over evil in this constant development of history. History points to a goal beyond itself,
and not merely to an eternity which negates history.” -The Christian Century, April 26, 1939.*
A little later, Harry Emerson Fosdick, widely quoted Modernist preacher, wrote a book entitled
Living Under Tension. The Second World War had already begun, with Liberalism as one of its victims.
Fosdick set off the tragedy of our time against the bright hopes that controlled men in earlier years. Said he:
“Every path that man is traveling today leads to the rediscovery of sin.” He contrasts the hopes once placed
in scientific inventions with the deadly war uses to which they are put. He reminds us of the confidence
once placed in education: “A century ago in Boston, Horace Mann [crusader for universal common school
education] believed that crime could be practically eliminated in this country by increase in the size and
number of our tax supported schools.”
66
* Those who wish to pursue further the subject of authoritative Modernist admissions are referred to an
impressive, two-volume work by Reinhold Niebuhr entitled The Nature and Destiny of Man, published in
1943 by Charles Scribner’s Son. As the preface states, this work represents two series of Gifford Lectures
given at the University of Edinburgh under the general title of “The Nature and Destiny of Man: A
Christian Interpretation.” Probably no other present-day work has more fully or more critically
examined the whole subject of man in relation to modern culture and in relation to the rosy theories of
human nature that have distinguished our day.
“High Intelligence and Low Desire”

Fosdick sorrowfully observes that today we have “a combination of high intelligence and low
desires.” He exclaims: “How easily some people have supposed that the human problem could be solved!”
And immediately gives these two illustrations:
“In 1893 Hiram Maxim, speaking of his new and terrible gun, said: ‘It will make war impossible.’
That is all he knew about human nature. In 1892 Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, said that his new
dynamite factories might end war sooner than peace congresses. That is all he knew about human nature.
This incomprehensible monster, man, has it in him to use for wholesale destruction things a thousand times
worse than dynamite and Maxim guns.”
Fosdick sums up the whole matter by saying that there has been “a radical failure to see that there
is something wrong in human nature itself,” and that something is what earlier theologians called “original
sin.” (Excerpts published in The Christian Advocate, March 19, 1942, under the title “Today’s Rediscovery
of Sin.”)
The ever-enlarging and ever-more-terrifying Second World War brought still more admissions of
disillusionment from the religious Liberals who had stood at the forefront in proclaiming the doctrine of a
hopeful, sunny future. And let it be remembered in this connection that while the idea of progress was first
promoted by confessedly godless skeptics, that idea was taken over and preached by Liberal ministers with
a new and authoritative fervor that quite outdid the rationalists. Hence the decline of the idea in religious
circles is more significant than its decline in secular ranks.
In the summer of 1945 we find Daniel Day Williams, of the Chicago Theological Seminary,
writing these confessional lines:
“Today the world wears an aspect which it did not have for most men of the nineteenth century.
We who thought of ourselves as men of good will creating a peaceful world are once more in the holocaust
of war....
“The change is not only in the outward situation but in the inward spirit of the contemporary man.
Something like an unmasking of our human nature has taken place. We have thought of ourselves as men
of good will building the good society. But was this not the conventional cloak for our real lack of love?
Are we quite sure we can distinguish in ourselves that which is truly the spirit of unselfish giving from that
which is merely the covert disguise of self-centeredness? ...
“How, then, can we think of the world as the subject of God’s redemption? For the answer to this
question contemporary theology is turning back to the Reformation doctrine that this world as we now
experience it is alienated from its true source and destiny. A fundamental wrongness has entered the world
in the form of sin.”-The Journal of Religion, July, 1945.
Williams admits that the basic concepts of Liberalism must be greatly revised, but he still feels
that something can be done to improve our world within modest limits. Says he:
“There are, indeed, limits to the possible transformation of the world. The sober language of
Christian realism will not forget the vast mystery of evil and death. It will confess the resistance to God’s
way in the soul of man. But no real good can come in history unless men are willing to do what they can
with human problems. Hopelessness produces helplessness.”-Ibid.
The Primary Liberal Premise Deserted

What a chastened and subdued Liberalism those sentences reveal! A few years ago such a
declaration would have been considered, for what it really is, a clear-cut desertion from the basic belief that
has distinguished Liberalism, the belief in the inevitable and glorious advance of man both morally and
materially in this very present world.
Willard L. Sperry, formerly dean of the Harvard Divinity School, writing at the close of the second
world war, observes how the first world war did not “affect our native optimism adversely,” that this
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optimism began to crack with the great depression of 1929 and the events that followed after. Then he adds:
“Nothing was farther from the thought of those of us who were already launched into our ministry
before 1914 than that we should ever live to see any such event of the dimensions of the First World War,
let alone two such wars. For us, let us say in the year 1910, great wars were things of the past, all fought
and finished long before. We read about them in a famous book, which had been in every boy’s library,
called Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World.
-Therefore there was good warrant for devoting ourselves to the task of perfecting the social order
as rapidly as possible. . . .
“Organized Christianity was wholly unprepared for the event [of two world wars], not merely
because it was hopelessly divided and thus unable to speak with a single voice, but because it had not
regarded any such eventuality as within the realm of historical probability.” -Christendom, Spring, 1946.
Secularists Make Confession

The shock and disillusionment of two world wars, while greatest for Liberal theologians, who had
buttressed their hopes of world progress with the apparent sanctions of the Christian religion, has been very
great for non-churchmen as well. Leaders of thought in every realm of life have been quite completely
disenchanted. Their social planning, their confidence in the inherent qualities of man, who needs only a
decent chance and a good environment in order to blossom out to perfection-all this has proved to be
unfounded.
Nicholas Murray Butler made the following confession in a closing paragraph of his 1944 report
as president of Columbia University:
“The history of the world’s religion, philosophy, literature and science records wisdom on the
highest plane and of most convincing character. Yet it is that wisdom which has shown itself unable to
control the conduct of mankind. Fundamentally, the ruling force is conduct, whether that conduct be moral
or immoral. If moral, there is hope for the world. If immoral, there is not only no hope, but no prospect of
anything but increasing and complete destruction of all that has been accomplished for civilization during
the past five thousand years. “-Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, Forty Fifth Series, no. 5, Dec.
30, 1944, p. 52.
A University of Toronto lecturer on political economy, Arnold S. Nash, makes this general
statement as to the collapse of Liberalist tenets:
“According to liberalism man is fundamentally good and his inherent goodness is indicated in his
increasing capacity, by using his intelligence, to solve all the problems that come his way. Such is the. basis
of the liberal belief in progress-the dogma that man, like the world itself, is slowly getting better so that
history becomes a progressive realization of man’s ideals as defects in social and economic organization
are remedied and education becomes more widespread.
“Such are the essential outlines of the faith of the typical university teacher of our era in the liberal
democratic countries. It is this faith which is now [1943] being shaken far more rudely by events than it
ever could be by argument. The tragic happenings of the last few years have indicated not only failure of
man as man but in particular the failure of thinking man.”-The University and the Modern World, pp. 30, 3
The Trouble Is With Man Himself

An editorial in a learned quarterly well reveals the changed feeling and the disillusionment of
secular thinkers produced by World War II. Commenting on “the starvation camps like Belsen and
Buchenwald and the annihilation camps like Maidenek,” the editor observes:
“It is not science that has destroyed the world, despite all the gloomy forebodings of the earlier
prophets. It is man who has destroyed man. He has destroyed him face to face, with forethought and
without pity. And he has not needed the newest weapons of science. He has used the oldest weapons of
hunger and the bludgeon and fire.
“This will be a blow to the artist and the social thinker.
“The basic assumption of twentieth-century social theory has been that mankind is caught in a
tragic paradox: that man’s brain creates the things his will cannot control. This has been proved true by the
event. But what we must now add to it is that man’s will creates the things that paralyze his brain and
brutalize his heart. And we must add that man’s heart has proved to be a soil in which it is possible for evil
to flower.
“We are the fortunate survivors who are able to witness the crumbling of the fascist house of
death. But we must not allow ourselves to forget that the men who built this house of death were also men,
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Their impulses were our impulses, their instinctive endowments ours, their biological inheritance ours, their
historical memories ours....
“The axis of interest will now have to shift to man himself and, his essential nature.”-The
American Scholar, Summer, 1945.
What might have been left of the doctrine of inevitable progress and the perfectibility of man was
finally blasted by the atomic bomb, which not only shook the earth, but also the minds of men in a way
they had never been shaken before. In comment on tile bomb, Raynlond B. Fosclick, president of the
Rockefeller Foundation, observes:
“As modern man looks in the mirror today, the reflected image is not what he has imagined
himself to be. We are apparently closer to barbarism than we fondly believed. The idea of automatic
progress, the upward and onward march of the race-seems curiously unreal in the light of what we have
done in these last years.
“We are called upon to deal not only with the explosive power of the atomic bomb but with the
equally explosive energy of human personality, and that energy can be just as devastating if released in the
wrong direction. It is not the weapon so much as it is the human beings who may wish to use it that
constitute the real danger. . . .
“Modern man-the end product of all the humanizing influences of sixty centuries-thus comes to
the end of this war. And in the looking glass we seem to see the image, not of a being grown kindly and
tolerant with the years, but of one whose primitive emotions lie just below the surface. And who is easily
capable of discarding the principles wrought out on Sinai and the Areopagus whenever they stand in his
way. J. A. Hobson’s characterization of twentieth-century man appears at first glance not too inaccurate: ‘A
naked Polynesian, parading in top hat and spats.”’-The New York Times Magazine, Dec. 30, 1945.
Writing in similar vein, a psychologist thus points to the real cause of terror in the Atomic Age:
‘Perhaps the reason why man becomes. terrified at the ominous possibilities of releasing atomic
energy, is that he has so recently been confronted by the fact that there are forces just as powerful and as
dangerous locked tip within himself.”-GRACE R. FOSTER in The American Scholar, Summer, 1946.
The editor of The Christian Century, writing under the title “The Atomic Bomb and the Christian
Faith,” in this way sums up the chief significance of atomic energy for the Christian church:
“We are thus brought to the final test under which Christianity must prove itself equal to discharge
its religious responsibility in a world community; namely, it must be able to do something radical about
man. We are told by the scientists that the possible destroyer of the earth as the habitation of man is none
other than man himself. . . . Science thus throws the whole question raised by the atomic bomb into the lap
of the Christian faith. Something radical must be done about man.
“When we talk about the nature of man, we are standing on ground that has been pre-empted by
Christianity. On this ground, science and Christianity now meet face to face. With one voice they declare
that the future is precarious and with one voice they declare that it is precarious because of man.
Christianity puts its finger upon that in man’s nature which science now gravely fears may cause his
destruction and the destruction of the earth with him. Science and Christianity are now looking at the same
thing in man. Science has no word for it, but Christianity has. That word is sin.’ - March 13, 1946.
And now, as if two world wars, capped by the explosive discovery of the atomic bomb, were not
enough, we hear dread forecasts of a greater horror, the hydrogen bomb. Though hidden behind a veil of
secrecy, enough is known about the hydrogen bomb to indicate that it is a fearful advance over the atomic
bomb.
Confessions of Atomic Scientists

At the close of the second world war a group of nuclear physicists, realizing the potential
destruction that resided in the product of their brains and hands, banded themselves into a society with a
view to promoting plans for the control of atomic energy. They lectured to service clubs and other groups.
They founded a journal, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in which they sought further to set forth the need
of controls. How poorly they succeeded in their endeavors they confess in a most revealing editorial in the
January, 1951, issue of the Bulletin. The editor recounts the educational activities of the scientists during
the preceding five years, and remarks: “Scientists--whose profession requires a recognition of facts.
however unpleasant cannot but admit the fact that their campaign has failed.” This leads him to raise the
morbid and self-answering question: “What then have we to show for five years of effort, except the relief
of having ‘spoken and saved our souls’ and the doubtful satisfaction of having been right in our gloomy
predictions?”
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Into the crooked and suffocating confines of this question mark may now be compressed what
remains of the glory and grandeur of a world that formerly thought it needed only the operation of a law of
progress, directed by the brains of scientists, to build a heaven on earth! Well has someone observed that
the real problem before us today is not the new atom but the old Adam!
In the light of all this testimony, and much more that might be offered, it is not unreasonable to
conclude that the doctrine of world progress is bankrupt today. To sum up-there were two pillars on which
the doctrine was reared:
1. That man is inherently good or at least that he has infinite potentialities of goodness, and that he
needs only better education, better environment, and better opportunities in order to bring out the best in
him and cause him to slough off any remaining taint of brute inheritance.
2. That there is a deep-moving and all-pervasive law of progress that leads the whole creation
onward and upward, which law finds its best scientific proof in the theory of evolution, and its best
practical demonstration in the marvelous developments of the modern scientific age.
Two Pillars of Doctrine Collapse

These two pillars that so long upheld the imposing edifice of world progress have today fallen as
surely as if a modern Samson had encircled them. The figure is apt. Ancient Samson was apparently under
complete control, blinded and chained by his captors, who reveled in the thought that no longer would their
lives be insecure. The Samson of war, boasted modern man, is robbed of power and chained by
international laws, mutual understanding of civilized peoples, and the general progress of mankind. But two
world wars, like the two hairy arms of the literal giant, Samson, have brought down the modern house of
delusive progress. Beneath the ruins lie the crushed hopes, not only of modern Philistines, but of many who
have paid at least lip service to the God of heaven.
Speaking literally, the so-called law of progress remains a figment of the mind of philosophers, a
piece of wishful thinking. The theory of evolution, even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that it
has been proved, now provides no support for the idea of progress. The latest in evolutionistic thinking
departs far from the idea of early enthusiasts who saw evolution carrying us all upward as surely as an
escalator lifts us up. Today, careful thinkers in that field confess they are not sure that evolution necessarily
means progress. Rather, it may mean only adaptation for various forms of life, and possible annihilation for
other forms that fail to adapt themselves to changing environment. Better education for the masses has
resulted, not in less crime, as forecast by the public-school pioneer, Horace Mann, but in more cunning
criminals. Better living conditions, symbolized often by more bathtubs in homes, have resulted in cleaner
bodies, but not cleaner minds. Science, with its inventions and discoveries, stands revealed, not as the agent
of progress, but as the handmaiden of destruction and chaos. Finally, man, the object of romantic eulogies
by rationalists and liberal churchmen, stands exposed for what he really is, not a steadily evolving god, but
a sorry creature whose good qualities, whatever they may be, are more than offset by his evil ones. With
disillusionment quite complete, there are few who would question the present appropriateness of the
inspired words: “The whole world lies in wickedness.”
What is the significance, for Adventists, of the rise and fall of the idea of progress? The question
will be answered in the next three chapters.
14. The First Angel’s Message

IN THE two preceding chapters the rise and the decline of the idea of progress and of the
perfectibility of man have been traced. The facts there set forth bear a most important relationship to the
central teachings of the Advent movement, the three angels’ messages.
Through the years we have often been guilty of attempting at one and the same time to prove both
too little and too much in our treatment of this moot subject of the goodness or badness of the world. And
to the extent we have done this, we have befogged the issue and have failed to show the full relationship of
the subject to the threefold message.
And how have we been guilty, at times, of attempting to prove more than we need to prove? By
seeking to prove that the very present generation is vastly worse in its morals, its practices, its gambling, its
dissipation, its lawlessness, than any preceding generation. And to support this claim we offer, for example,
newspaper clippings showing the appalling conditions presently existing in the world-crime, drunkenness,
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debauchery, and other debasing practices.

Probably no one would challenge the claim that the world today presents a black and sordid
picture, and that in certain ways it undoubtedly is worse than when our fathers and grandfathers lived. But a
critic of Adventism may rightly contend that proper perspective calls for a survey of centuries, not simply a
generation or two. And such a critic need not be a believer in the idea of progress in order to raise a
historically fortified objection that the record of former centuries could hardly be less black than that of the
present. Some objectors may even remind us that Adventist teaching places the Dark Ages in the past, and
glories in the spiritual enlightenment brought by the Protestant Reformation.
All this and much more can be, and often is, cited by those acquainted with history who wish to
challenge the sweeping and unqualified claim sometimes made by Adventist preachers that the world today
is much worse in morals and practices than it ever was in any past generation. And are Adventist critics
correct in declaring that the picture of the past is black as an Egyptian night? The answer emphatically is,
Yes, for all history makes most depressing reading, being one long chronicle of dark and dastardly deeds
committed by sinful men. Then what is the weak spot in the argument sometimes presented by our
ministers that the world is so very much worse today than it has ever been before?
Tried to Prove More Than Necessary

The answer is, we have sought to prove more than we needed to prove. And we have been led into
doing this primarily because our theological opponents have been insisting through the long years that the
world is steadily improving. We set out to prove that they were dead wrong, by presenting evidence to
show that the world is very, very much worse. And there is nothing more pathetic than for a man who has a
good case, to weaken it by trying to prove more than he needs to. The Bible paints a picture of evil rampant
in the last days, of “perilous times,” of abounding iniquity. How true that picture is. We see it before our
eyes. But the Bible paints an equally dark picture of the past centuries, which we describe with vigor and
horror as the Dark Ages. Then it was that the Scripture was fulfilled, that he that “kills you will think that
he does God service.” And it was during these long centuries, declare some critics, that there can be found a
sufficient basis for the idea of increasing iniquity that is deduced from the text that “evil men and seducers
shall wax worse and worse.”
But someone may ask: Then what is the real point in the Biblical statements that describe the evil
state of our world in the last day? The reasonable answer is: To protect us against the delusive idea of
progress and man’s perfectibility, that has captured and controlled the thinking of churchmen as well as
secularists during all the years that the Advent movement has been in the world. From the very outset the
Advent pioneers were met with the bold declaration that world betterment lay ahead. But those pioneers,
and we who followed them, were not led astray by this deception. There stood the warning words from
Paul: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.” Our very insistence on the literal
truth of such a statement protected us from the delusion of progress and placed us immediately in conflict
with that prevailing view.
We took our stand on the premise that there is no Scriptural ground for believing that conditions
will be better. In that we were, and are, correct. If we are able to show from Scripture and history that man
is not rising to moral heights, that today it is true, even as it was nineteen hundred years ago, that “the
whole world lies in wickedness,” what more need we prove?
Secondary Reason for Unwarranted Conclusion

A secondary reason why some among us have sought to prove more than we need to prove
regarding the wickedness of the world lies in the fact, already alluded to, that we make comparisons
between our fathers’ day and ours, and hasten to draw therefrom long-range conclusions that affect all past
centuries. Furthermore, those comparisons have most frequently been made in America. In this land
Adventist theological thinking was first shaped.
Now in the last generation the population of America has rapidly moved from the country to the
cities, which have ever been centers of evil. It is a significant fact that Mrs. White, in her descriptions of
abounding evil in the last days, focuses on the cities. (See, for example, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 9,
pp. 89-96) There is no debating the fact that as multitudes have moved to great cities the moral tone of the
populace has been lowered.
One cannot read far into Mrs. White’s descriptions of increasing evils and of the supposedly
fireproof structures rising in the great cities without being impressed that her prophetic eye was most
directly focused on America, the land that cradled God’s Advent movement, the country so directly
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described by the revelator John.

But Mrs. White has left on record a description of other lands and other days. When she was
transported in vision to the Dark Ages, she penned a picture before which all else, even the present, seems
to pale. And well she might, for that was the time of which our Lord spoke when He said that if those days
were not shortened no flesh would be saved.
It is not difficult, to harmonize her fearful portrayal of the Dark Ages with her picture of the last
days as wicked beyond words, and thus apparently worse than all past times. In her description of the
“Conditions in the Cities” she declares:
“From age to age the Lord has made known the manner of His working. When a crisis has come,
He has revealed Himself, and has interposed to hinder the working out of Satan’s plans. “-Testimonies, vol.
9”P. 91.
Ebb and Flow of Tides of Evil

Here is clearly set forth the thought of rising tides of evil, which seek ever and anon to engulf the
whole world, but which are driven back by the interposition of God. The engulfing flood at the time of the
Roman Empire was driven back by our Lord’s first advent. The blackness of the Dark Ages was rolled back
by the Reformation. For the elect’s sake the days of satanic persecution were shortened. Later, men like
Wesley arose in the power of the Spirit to revive men religiously. Wesley has been credited with saving
England from a frightful revolution such as overran France, where peasants cried unavailingly for bread
and then arose to slay their rulers.
This view of the sorry, sinister, and so-called Christian Era gives us a true picture of the history of
evil, a picture that comports with the statement quoted from Mrs. White. For us to convey the idea of a
world steadily sinking, without any periods of even partial reversal of the trend, is to leave no place for the
mighty workings of God upon men and nations at various times. That fact should give us pause.
We may properly make some sobering comparisons between grand father’s day and ours, and in
so doing we shall find ourselves squaring with the Spirit of prophecy. But that is something quite different
from those sweeping, unqualified assertions that some of us have made at times regarding the awful
iniquity of he present as compared with all the past.
Furthermore, even in our comparisons of two closely connected generations in the setting of Mrs.
White’s words, we need to be restrained, and for a particular reason. We read in the Spirit of prophecy a
dark picture of our day-which is our proper justification for describing it as very evil. But Spirit of
prophecy descriptions of today have a way of merging into a picture of what the world will be like in the
last hours of earth’s history, when God’s Spirit shall be completely withdrawn. Then indeed will be a state
of evil without parallel, unless it be the hours just preceding the Flood. If we keep in mind that a prophet
takes in the whole sweep of the future, we will be better able to make judicious use of the inspired words of
the servant of God that not only describe the evils of our day but also of all the remaining days until the
final hour when Satan holds complete sway over a rebellious world.
Failed to Prove All We Might

But if we have erred at times in attempting to prove too much in regard to the iniquity of the world
today, we have also erred at times in failing to see how fully and forcefully the sorry state of the world
supports our preaching of the three angels’ messages. In other words, we have often failed to prove all that
could be proved from the facts before us regarding the secularization of the world and the apostasy in
Christendom. In this and the following two chapters will be shown the relation of these facts to the first,
second, and third angels’ messages, which are the heart of our message to the world, and hence the chief
reason for our existence as a distinctive people.
What constitutes the first angel’s message? A command and an announcement. The command:
“Fear God, and give glory to him; and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the
fountains of waters.” The announcement: “The hour of his judgment is come.” (See Revelation 14:6, 7) The
angel who gives this combined command and announcement is described as ‘having the everlasting gospel
to preach unto them that dwell on the earth.” And rightly so. The inspired explanation of the appalling
depravity into which the human race sank in its early days, and in which it has continued to lie, is that men
turned away from God. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Who changed the
truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator. And even as they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind.” Romans 1:21-28. The
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Gentiles are described as “being alienated from the life of God,” and having therefore “given themselves
over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.” Ephesians 4:18, 19.
The Central Message of the Prophets

The burden of the message of holy men and prophets through the long ages has been that men
should turn to the true God, the God who is ready to forgive, but also who is of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity. Coupled with this has been the warning that God will come in judgment upon evildoers. The sad
refrain in the chronicles of Israel is that they “forgot God” and turned to idols, so that they finally did worse
than the vile heathen round about them. The appeal to Israel was: “Repent, and turn your selves from your
idols.” “Turn you, turn you from your evil ways; for why Will you die, 0 house of Israel?” Ezekiel 14:6;
33: 11.
When Christ came He declared: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God,
and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent.” John 17:3. Christ came to reveal to men the Father as
compassionate, but also as holy, as perfect. And His command was: “Be you therefore perfect, even as your
Father which is in heaven is perfect.” With this He coupled a warning of a day of wrath and of judgment to
come.
The manner in which the apostles preached is revealed in Paul’s description of the results of the
gospel on the Thessalonians: “You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait
for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to
come.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9,10. Again: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. Now then
we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be you
reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:19, 20.
When Paul spoke to the Athenians he described the true God as the one “that made the world and
all things therein,” and called on them to “repent” and serve this true God “because he bath appointed a
day, in the which he will judge the world.” Acts 17:24,30,31.
Truly the Everlasting Gospel

In the setting of these inspired passages how truly may the first angel’s message be described as
the preaching of the “everlasting gospel.” The fact that the words, “hour of his judgment,” in the message,
focus on the first part of God’s great judgment work, does not set it apart from the message of coming
judgment that prophets and apostles described, for the investigative judgment is the first phase of God’s
final judgment of all mankind. The uniqueness of the judgment message in Revelation 14:6, 7 is this: it is to
be given at a certain time, in fulfillment of prophecy, and it is to be the last appeal to men to make ready for
the great day of God. As Adventists we believe that message was due to be preached in 1844 and thereafter
until the final climax. We have seen in this message of judgment a call to men to make ready for the
Second Coming of Christ, for the execution of the judgment is at the coming of Christ, and is the reason for
His coming.
This message of Revelation 14:6, 7, along with the two messages immediately following, is of the
essence of the truth we are to preach to men from the day of the rise of the Advent movement until Christ
comes. But we can preach it in its fullness and with its greatest convicting power only as we see it in the
setting of events developing in the world at the time the Advent movement was due to arise. Those
developing events have been described briefly in the two preceding chapters. There it was shown that the
Christian world began to break away from the control of apostate Rome in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. While some, following the teaching of the Protestant Reformers, exchanged the authority of the
Catholic Church for the authority of the Bible, a large and steadily increasing number exchanged churchly
authority for the authority of reason. Rationalism led men’s minds ever farther away from God, the facts
and forces of nature being increasingly explained so as to leave God out of the picture. As one writer well
says, “The history of the modern Western mind may be said to be the history of a gradual secularization of
man.”-WILHELM PAUCK in The Church Against the World, p. 34. The blind forces of nature were
becoming a substitute for God. A prominent writer of the late nineteenth century picturesquely declared:
“Thus has gradually grown up, without our confessing it, a kind of scientific polytheism-one great
Jehovah, perhaps, but with many agents or sub-gods, each independent, efficient, and doing all the real
work in his own domain. The names of these, our gods, are gravity, light, heat, electricity, magnetism,
chemical affinity, etc., and we are practically saying: ‘These be your gods, 0 Israel, which brought you out
of the land of Egyptian darkness and ignorance. These be the only gods you need fear, and serve, and study
the ways Of.’ “-JOSEPH LECONTE, Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought, p. 298.
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That was the picture -when the Advent movement began. How fitting the message: ‘Fear God, and
give glory to him.” “Worship him that made heaven, and earth.” When men were declaring that the endless
future held only increasing progress’ how appropriate to sound the warning of judgment at hand!
The Existence of God Challenged

The evidence presented in the preceding chapters reveals that the secularization so widespread at
the time of the rise of Adventism has become almost universal today, that the very idea of God has been
strongly challenged within the church itself by a school of thought called Humanism.
How strong that challenge has become in the last few decades is clearly revealed in the address by
J. D. Jones, the moderator at the Fifth International Congregational Council, Bournemouth, England.
Speaking on the subject “The Recovery of Our Sense of God,” he declared in part:
“The facts are that at the moment the Church is to a large extent neglected, and religion seems to
be losing its hold over vast masses of mankind. And this neglect of the Church and decay of religion is a
symptom of something deeper and more serious still. That deeper and more serious thing is this-the very
existence of God is being challenged and denied. The Church all down the centuries has had to contend
earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. It is familiar with battle. But when I think of the
conflicts through which it has passed-the fight that raged around the question of the Person of Christ. The
fight which Luther fought for the freedom of the Christian soul, the more recent disputes and controversies
about the Bible and its inspiration, and the dates and authorship of its various books-they all seem to me to
be affairs of ‘outposts’ and ‘outworks ‘ compared to the fight that is upon us today. The attack today is riot
upon the outworks but upon the citadel itself. It is the existence of God that is being called in question.
“Popular writers like H. G. Wells practically repudiate the idea of a personal God; Bernard Shaw
talks about the ‘life force’; others dissolve Him into ‘the sum of all ideal values’; while others like Bertrand
Russell deny Him altogether and declare that ‘the individual soul must struggle alone with what of courage
it can command against the whole weight of a Universe that cares nothing for its hopes and fears.’ The
teaching of the Scientists, backed by certain of the New Psychologists, who reduce God to a projection of
the human mind, percolates through magazine and novel into the minds of the men and women of our day.
It creates their intellectual atmosphere, and in that atmosphere, touched by what Mr. Walter Lippmann calls
the ‘acids of modernity,’ belief in God, in the Christian God, has simply dissolved.”-The Congregationalist,
July 24, 1930, p. 103.
God and Moral Standards

When God disappears from men’s minds, what is the inevitable effect upon Christian ethics, that
is, upon Christian standards of morality? The Congregationalist moderator immediately answers thus:
“With the dissolving of the belief in God has come a challenge to the whole Christian ethic.
Huxley and Tyndall, whatever may be said of their materialistic philosophy, were men of high ethical
standards. I remember hearing Dr. Fairbairn describe John Morley (as he was then) as the best Christian in
the Cabinet of which he was a member, though he was a professed agnostic and spelled the word ‘God’
always with a small ‘g’. That was the peculiarity of the agnosticism of fifty years ago-while rejecting the
Christian faith, it accepted and observed Christian ethics. But that position could not for long be
maintained. Flowers will not grow if they have no root, and the Christian ethic has no compulsive authority
apart from the Christian belief in God. This is the point Mr. Walter Lippmann stresses in his book, A
Preface to Morals. Men no longer believe in a Sovereign God, a God who rules this world and who by the
hand of Moses issued a moral code for His subjects, and therefore that moral code has lost its binding
authority.”
An eminent scientist of the early twentieth century, the late Henry Fairfield Osborn, offers similar
testimony in the following admission:
“It may be said without scientific or religious prejudice that the world-wide loss of the older
religious and Biblical foundation of morals has been one of the chief causes of human decadence in
conduct, in literature, and in art.”-The Earth Speaks to Bryan, p. 63.
These quotations are typical of many that might he given in proof that the disappearance of God
results in a disappearance also of Christian standards of morality. Without belief in a “Sovereign God, a
God who rules this world,” the “moral code” has no “binding authority.” The relationship which the Bible
sets up between forgetting God and falling into sin and immorality is proved true again down here in the
last days of earth’s history, even as it has been proved true innumerable times before.
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Present Compared With Past

The chief reason why this present-day general departure from God has not reflected itself more sharply in a
lower moral level as compared with that of former generations is that a great majority of those living in
earlier generations were also without God. No contradiction is stated. In the Colonial Era in America only
about five per cent of the population were church members, the ninety-five per cent presumably had no
clearly defined Christian idea of God to lose from their minds. In England, and certainly on the Continent,
spiritual conditions were no better. Wesley’s preaching to England’s unchurched masses vividly illustrates
this fact. But in earlier generations the clergy all held to the elementary doctrine of a personal God, and to
the limited number who actually came under their influence they taught this doctrine.
In our modern times the apostles of progress have pointed with assurance to the fact that more than
fifty per cent of the population in the United States are church members. As though that in itself proved that
the country was far more Christian, far more moral, than in past generations. But what they forget is that
the ministers who preach to this fifty percent or those of them that attend church-have been deeply tainted
with skeptical, godless theories, some of them even to the point of accepting Humanism, which is simply a
“poetic form of atheism.”
In former times the uneducated and often unchurched masses might have little consciousness of
God, for lack of positive training in religion. In our present day it is true that many humble church members
believe sincerely the Bible. But the generally educated masses, despite their church contacts, often have an
actively negative attitude toward God because of the skeptical theories they are frequently taught in church
as well as in school. Thus it proves true that a day of great intellectual enlightenment d” not produce a
generation lighted by the truth of God. That is why darkness continues to cover the earth and gross
darkness the people. And that is why the world still lies in wickedness.
A Most Timely Message

All this is but another way of saying that the call to men to worship the God who made heaven and
earth (Revelation 14:6, 7), which was timely in 1844, has gained increasing timeliness as the years have
passed by. This fact we need to realize and to stress in our preaching. Reverting to the evidence of the
preceding chapter: In view of the collapse of the idea of progress, how timely the message that the hour of
God’s judgment has come. Judgment on a world that “lies in wickedness” and that a better world is soon to
be set up by the Second Advent of Christ!
One of the most telling arguments set forth for the need of the Second Advent is the obvious and
easily established fact that the world is no better than it was in past centuries. The edge of the blade of
Second Advent preaching has been repeatedly dulled through the long generations past by the corrosive
heresy that the world will gradually be improved by the efforts of man until we shall have a virtual Paradise
here. The blade can be kept to razor sharpness by affirming the fact that the world still “lies in wickedness.”
There are only two solutions of the tragedy of our world that have been offered by churchmen throughout
the history of Christendom: (1) the improvement of the world by man’s efforts, and (2) the renovation of
the world by the supernatural appearing of Christ. If the former solution stands exposed as impossible of
accomplishment there remains only the latter, the Biblical teaching for which we stand.
Instead of dealing with the question of the relative wickedness of the world as simply one of a
series of signs showing the nearness of the Advent, and attempting to prove more than we easily can. We
should give to the question a more basic significance by showing that the evident failure of the world to rise
from the pit of iniquity in which it has wallowed for ages, constitutes a powerful reason why Christ should
come.
Excellent Setting for Adventist Preaching

Let us repeat, the bankruptcy of the doctrine of world progress, because of the exposure of the
innate evil of the human heart, makes a marvelous setting in which to preach the Advent. With the idea of
world progress bankrupt. Adventists should take over the receivership. We can thunder forth: It is the
Second Advent or nothing! We actually need not prove that the world is one whit worse than it ever was in
order for that thundering challenge to echo and re-echo over the whole earth and to demand the sober
attention of all men. And the thunder of our challenge is now reinforced by the roar of atomic bombs. A
wicked world is today able to do what it formerly could not do-destroy itself! Thus our challenge can now
ring out with irresistible power: It is the Second Advent or chaos!
If we can give so awesome a message as that to the world, while standing on the undebatable and
simple premise that “the whole world lies in wickedness”. Why endanger the force of that message by
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unnecessary, and sometimes questionable, arguments as to whether in this or that particular way the world
is worse than formerly?
Undoubtedly there are ways in which men are worse than they were at some other periods in the
past. Certain kinds of evil take on new forms and new potency at different times. Today, for example, the
evils of war are the most frightful ever, and have stimulated men to depths of brutality and mass murder
hardly paralleled in world history. The grisly facts of World War 11 neutralize quite completely such
proofs of world progress as abolition of slavery, better economic conditions for the masses, and the like.
But why enter into needless debate on the relative awfulness of different forms of iniquity that
sweep men down to the pit in one generation or another? There may have been a day, earlier in our history,
when it seemed worth while thus to debate, because the idea of progress was dominant. But surely not
today! Our erstwhile opponents in this area of discussion now quite generally make abject admission that
man is not progressing, that on the contrary there is something desperately the matter with him and with the
world.
Changing Battle Lines

Lines of battle in theology, even as in literal warfare, change from time to time. To attack a
deserted position is, to say the least, a sorry waste of energy and ammunition. That long-held, strategic
sector of the enemy lines known as the idea of world progress is now almost completely abandoned. Those
who once confidently attacked our opposing position, the supernatural Second Advent, must now spend
their time reforming their lines because of having to abandon their world progress sector, from which they
formerly sallied forth. We can today boldly deploy ourselves over the strategically important field known
as the doctrine of man’s inherently evil nature, with hardly a challenging shot’s being fired. We even find
joining us on that field some from the other side who frankly declare that they now believe our side in the
controversy is right. Standing thus today on that strategic field, Aye can again sound our battle cry: The
Second Advent or chaos! And go forth more successfully than ever before to win men to the banner of our
soon-coming Lord.
What a day in which to preach the first angel’s message!
15. The Second Angel’s Message

AND THERE followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because
she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” Revelation 14:8.
“Babylon of the Apocalypse is the professed church united with the world.”-URIAH SMITH,
Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation, p. 648, rev. ed. The fall of Babylon is a spiritual one, and is due to
two causes: (1) alliance with civil power, described in the Scriptures as fornication with the kings of the
earth; and (2) teaching false doctrine. On this point Mrs. E. G. White declares:
“This cup of intoxication which she [Babylon] presents to the world, represents the false doctrines
that she has accepted as the result of her unlawful connection with the great ones of the earth. Friendship
with the world corrupts her faith, and in her turn she exerts a corrupting influence upon the world by
teaching doctrines which are opposed to the plainest statements of Holy Writ.”-The Great Controversy, p.
388.
Now, it is not hard to prove, as regards Roman Catholicism, that Babylon is fallen. But Babylon
involves all Christendom. Protestantism can easily be proved guilty on the first count of alliance with the
kings of the earth. Even from the earliest days of Protestantism there have been state churches. Nor is it
difficult to show that throughout most of Protestant history there has been a distressing degree of
conformity to the world and lack of godliness. But religious bodies are chiefly distinguished by the beliefs
they hold. Thus in order to show that the second angel’s message is truly and completely being fulfilled in
our day, we must show that Protestantism has fallen away from true doctrines.
Protestantism arose from Rome in the sixteenth century. It did not fall then. True, the creeds
formulated by Protestant bodies retarded the rise from the errors of Rome. But the direction, in general, was
upward toward Scriptural truth and the purity of the gospel. The great Protestant bodies, as they arose,
stood firmly on the high platform of the authority of the Bible, the personality of God, the deity of Christ,
the blood atonement, and the Second Advent of Christ in judgment.
Although these and related primary truths of the Scripture were not always clearly and correctly
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held, and though they were sometimes mingled with errors of Rome, we can still truly say that the rise of
Protestantism marked a rise in spiritual understanding and doctrine.
The Timing of the Prophecy

But the prophecy being considered declares that “Babylon is fallen.” And when should we look for
this prophecy to be fulfilled, or at least for the message concerning its fulfillment to be proclaimed? The
second cannot precede the first, and the first began to be proclaimed in a definite, organized way about the
fourth decade of the nineteenth century. Mrs. White states that the second angel’s message “was first
preached in the summer of 1844.” -The Great Controversy, p. 389.
And where was it first preached? “It then had a more direct application to the churches of the
United States.”-Ibid. And why? Because this was “where the warning of the judgment had been most
widely proclaimed and most generally rejected, and where the declension of the churches had been most
rapid.”-Ibid.
Now, was the second angel’s message completely fulfilled in the year 1844? No. “The message of
the second angel did not reach its complete fulfillment in 1844.”-Ibid. And why? Writing in 1888, Mrs.
White declared: “The work of apostasy has not yet reached its culmination.”-Ibid. “The change is a
progressive one, and the perfect fulfillment of Revelation 14:8 is yet future. “-Ibid., p. 390. Commenting
further on this point of progressive fulfillment, Mrs. White declares:
“Revelation 18 points to the time, when as a result of rejecting the threefold warning of Revelation
14:6-12, the church will have fully reached the condition foretold by the second angel, and the people of
God still in Babylon will be called upon to separate from her communion. This message is the last that will
ever be given to the world; and it will accomplish its work.”-Ibid.
The Message the Churches Rejected

What was the message preached in 1844 which the churches rejected” and thus set in motion a
“progressive” declension that would finally fulfill completely the prophecy of Revelation 14:8? The answer
is that the churches rejected the doctrine of the literal, personal Second Advent of Christ to bring an end to
a world of sin and to create a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness.
The churches opposed the message of the literal, personal coming of Christ with the doctrine of
the spiritual coming of our Lord that put into the dim future, if ever, the actual coming. Instead of teaching
that Christ would come in judgment on this present evil world, they taught the doctrine of world conversion
and a temporal millennium. The facts on this have already been presented in chapter 13.
The Real Point of Controversy

There have been critics of Adventism who sought to make high sport of our doctrine of the second
angel’s message by declaring that we condemned the churches of 1844 and have continued to condemn
them since then because they refused to believe the false teaching that the Lord would come on October 22,
1844. But from evidence already presented it is clear that this charge is false, because it fails to state the
whole case. An examination of the controversy between Adventists and the various churches in 1844 leaves
no possible doubt that the real point of conflict was the question of the nature of the impending event and
not the time of the occurrence of that event.
The 1844 opponents of Millerism, let it be repeated here, were generally willing to admit that
Adventists followed sound principles of prophetic interpretation and that the great time prophecies were
probably coming to their fulfillment in the nineteenth century. In fact, some of the opponents were as
definite on the matter of prophetic time as were the Adventists under William Miller. In other words, if
William Miller and the Advent preachers had proclaimed that 1844 would mark the beginning of an earthly
millennium which would grow more glorious for a thousand years to come, probably no opposition would
have been raised.
That the real controversy dealt with the literal versus the spiritual coming of Christ becomes even
more evident when we examine the article by the Millerite leader Charles Fitch entitled “Come Out of Her,
My People.”* This article, apparently, was the first Millerite presentation of the prophetic subject of the fall
of Babylon in relation to the command: “Come out of her, my people.” Fitch’s thesis was this:
Catholicism, and later on, Protestantism, when preaching the doctrine of the spiritual coming of
Christ and a temporal millennium, were guilty of putting off the coming of the Lord. Hence they belonged
to that company of evil servants who declare, “My Lord delays his coming.” They lulled men to sleep in a
sense of false security.
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Fitch also charged that the doctrine of the spiritual reign of Christ took away from our Lord His
reality and that therefore the preachers of this doctrine fell under the indictment of the apostle John. “Every
spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of
antichrist, whereof you have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” 1 John 4:1
Declared Fitch:
“To confess with the lips Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, and yet to he Opposed in heart and life
to the objects for which He came, is certainly to be Antichrist. The spirit therefore which is of God, while it
confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, will cordially embrace, and heartily enter into all the
objects for which he was thus manifested. All else must be Antichrist. What then was the end for which
Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh?”
* This article appeared first in a Millerite paper The Second Advent of Christ, published at Cleveland,
Ohio, of which Fitch was the editor. The date of the issue is July 26, 1943. The article is lengthy occupying
all of the first page, and the immediately succeeding pages. Underneath the title is the display line: “A
Sermon, by C. Fitch.” However this may simply mean a printed sermon, or an article in sermon form. The
references to the doctrine “Come Out of Her my People” as found in Millerite literature in the summer of
1843, are in terms of Fitch’s article rather than of sermons that he had been preaching. The quotations in
the following paragraphs are from this original article. The article was reprinted in other Millerite papers
and also in leaflet form.
A Personal Return of Christ

After declaring that Christ came to suffer for our sins, Fitch inquires:
“But did Jesus Christ come in the flesh for no purpose but to suffer? Hear Peter on the day of
Pentecost, after he had been baptized with the Holy Ghost, and fully qualified to set forth the objects of
Christ’s coming. Acts 2:29, ‘Men and brethren, let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he is
both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing
that God had sworn, with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, He would raise
up Christ to sit on his throne: he, seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ. Here we are
informed that God had sworn with an oath to David, that He would raise up Christ in the flesh to sit on
David’s throne. Christ was therefore to come in the flesh to reign on David’s throne, and was raised up
from the dead with flesh and bones for that purpose, and in that same body ascended to heaven. And angels
declared that He would so come again, in like manner as He went into heaven. Now, as His ascension is
personal, His coming must be personal. . . .
“In the new earth wherein dwells righteousness, therefore, Christ will sit personally and eternally
on David’s throne, ruling the world in righteousness, and of His kingdom there shall be no end. Hence it
follows, that whoever is opposed to the personal reign of Jesus Christ over this world on David’s throne, is
Antichrist.”
Fitch then asks: “Who is opposed to the personal reign of Christ on David’s throne?” and answers
thus: “First. The entire Roman Catholic Church. The primitive church believed in the personal reign of
Christ, and looked and longed for it, and waited for His appearing, and loved it as the apostles had done
before them. Justin Martyr, one of the primitive Christians, declares that this was the faith in which all the
orthodox in the primitive church, agreed. But when the papacy came into power, they concluded to have
Christ reign, not personally, but spiritually, and hence the Pope entered into the stead of Christ, and
undertook to rule the world for Him-claiming to be God’s vicegerent on earth. Inasmuch, therefore, as the
Papists wish to retain their power, we find them all opposed to Christ’s coming to establish a personal
reign. They are willing that Christ should reign spiritually, provided they can be His acknowledged agents,
and thus bring the world to bow down wholly to their dictation, and use God’s authority for their own
aggrandizement.”
Protestantism Indicted With Rome

After discussing at some length the Catholic Church, Fitch raises the question:
“Is the Catholic Church only, opposed to the personal reign of Christ? What shall we say of
Protestant Christendom in this respect? Among all the sects into which the Protestant church is divided,
where is one that is not decidedly hostile to the Bible truth that Christ has been raised up to sit personally
on David’s throne? Indeed, where has such a notice originated, as that Christ is to have only a spiritual
reign? There is nothing in the Bible that furnishes the least shadow of a foundation for such an idea. Paul
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has, however, given us a clue to the origin of the very thing. (2 Tim. 4:3, 4) ‘For the time will come when
they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned to fables.’ This is at
present true of all sects in Protestant Christendom. The sound Scriptural doctrine of the personal reign of
Christ on David’s throne cannot now be endured, and hence the teachers which the various sects have been
heaping to themselves have turned away their ears to the groundless fable of a spiritual reign of Christ,
during what is called a temporal millennium, when they expect all the world will be converted; and each
sect is expecting at that time to have the predominant influence. But no one of them is willing to have
Christ come in person to rule the world for Himself, while they take their place at His feet to do His
bidding, nor are they willing to listen for a moment to what the Bible says respecting Christ’s personal
coming. They profess to be desiring the spiritual reign of Christ, and to be living for the conversion of the
world to the religion of the crucified Nazarene. Tell them, however, that Christ is coming in person,
according to the oath of God, to carry out the principles of His own religion for ever, and they are ready to
fight against it with all their might.”
Conflict of Belief as to Nature of Advent

These quotations make it abundantly evident that the primary controversy between our Millerite
forebears and the opposing churches was over the question of whether the coming of Christ was to be literal
or spiritual. It is true that the time element, the 1844 Advent date, is brought into the discussion. But this
was only in a limited, minor way after the main indictment had been brought against popular churches
because of their opposition to the Scriptural doctrine of the personal coming of Christ. On the time aspect,
which was the chief error in the Millerite preaching of the Second Advent, Fitch declares, for example:
“All these pretended Christian sects are particularly opposed to the idea that Christ is coming
speedily in person, to take the dominion of the world; and especially to the idea that there is Bible evidence
for believing that He will come during the present Jewish year.”
Fitch goes on to ask the question, “What is it for God’s people to come out of Babylon?” and
answers thus:
‘To come out of Babylon is to be converted to the true Scriptural doctrine of the personal coming
and kingdom of Christ. To receive the truth on this subject with all readiness of mind as you find it plainly
written out on the pages of the Bible. To love Christ’s appearing, and rejoice in it, and fully and faithfully
to avow to the world your unshrinking belief in God’s word touching this momentous subject, and to do all
in your power to open the eyes of others, and influence them to a similar course, that they may be ready to
meet their Lord.”
An Appeal to the Churches

Fitch then devotes a paragraph to the time element in the Advent preaching, but when he comes to
making a direct appeal a little farther on “to come out of Babylon,” he focuses directly and quite
exclusively on the question of spiritualizing away the Advent, as the following words reveal:
“Throw away that miserable medley of ridiculous spiritualizing nonsense with which multitudes
have so long been making the word of God of none effect, and dare to believe the Bible. . . .
“Away forever with your miserable transcendental philosophy, that would make the throne of
David a spiritual throne, and the coming of Christ to sit upon it as a spiritual coming, and His reign a
spiritual reign. Thanks be to God, His kingdom cannot be blown up into such spiritual bubbles as these, for
a thousand, or even 365 thousand years. And then blown for ever away into some ethereal something,
which some sneering infidel has defined, to be sitting on a cloud and singing Psalms to all eternity. No, no.
Jesus Christ has been raised up in David’s flesh immortalized, and He shall come in that flesh glorified.”
Thus wrote Charles Fitch, the fervent Advent leader, in the summer of 1843. His view soon
leavened the lump of Adventist believers, and in the summer of 1844 the cry, “Babylon is fallen, come out
of her, my people,” began to be heard wherever Advent preachers held forth. To believe in the personal
coming of Christ in glory to bring rewards to all, stood forth in Adventist preaching as the essence of all
true Christian thinking concerning God’s plan for this world. The opposing doctrine of the spiritual coming
of Christ, with a temporal millennium and world conversion, stood for a denial of the doctrine of the
supernatural, personal coming of our Lord and hence as a symbol of apostasy from apostolic teaching.
Put Finger on Real Issue

We need not agree with all the reasoning set forth by Charles Fitch and other Advent preachers in
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what they wrote or said concerning Babylon and its fall. It may be argued that they restricted too much the
meaning of the prophetic forecast concerning the fall of Babylon, and certainly they were in error to the
extent that they drew in a time element. But admitting all this-and we can freely do so, still leaves valid and
meaningful the heart of their preaching and of their indictment of the churches. These pioneer Adventists
put their finger on the real issue when they dealt with the question of the spiritual versus the personal
coming of Christ; for fundamentally different conceptions of the whole plan of God for this world grow out
of those two conceptions of Christ’s coming. We have already seen in an earlier chapter how the doctrine
of the spiritual coming of Christ led on to a virtual denial of the whole idea of the coming of Christ and
prepared the minds of religious leaders to support essentially secular ideas of world progress.
The Advent pioneers of the 1840’s were also correct in declaring that the false doctrine of the
spiritual coming of Christ grew out of false principles of spiritualizing Scripture that ultimately rob the
Bible of any direct or literal message to the souls of men. The Reformers of the sixteenth century showed
clearly that Rome by her spiritualizing of Scripture gave to it a nose of wax, as Luther declared, that could
be turned in one direction or another, and hence the Bible lost its value as an authoritative spiritual guide
for life. In the nineteenth century arose the Advent movement to speak out against false teachings in
Protestantism concerning the primary truth of the Second Coming of our Lord, teachings that were the
fruitage of a spiritualizing tendency that had steadily developed in Protestantism.
Summarize Developments in Apostasy

So much for the historical record concerning the first preaching of the second angel’s message in
1844 in America. We have already read the statement by Mrs. White from The Great Controversy, which
was written in 1888, that “the work of apostasy has not yet reached its culmination,” that “the change is a
progressive one, and the perfect fulfillment of Revelation 14:8 is yet future.” In an earlier chapter on the
rise of the idea of progress we learned that the doctrine of the spiritual coming of Christ and the temporal
millennium became increasingly secularized as the supernatural element disappeared. And that this was the
result of an acceptance by the churches of skeptical theories and higher criticism. We also saw how Darwin
supplanted Moses in the thinking of an increasing number of clergy in regard to the beginnings of Bible
history. Needless to say, Protestant ministers, when confronted with the plausible arguments for evolution,
discovered an easy way to harmonize evolution and the Bible by spiritualizing away the scriptures which
describe the creation of our world. They had already spiritualized away scriptures concerning the end of the
world.
But this acceptance of evolution by an increasing number of the clergy in the closing decades of
the nineteenth century and onward produced a revolution in theological thought more complete and sudden
than in any preceding period in the history of the Christian church. Let us summarize the principal Christian
doctrines that were vitally affected as churchmen gave increasing car to scientific dogmas in general and to
evolution in particular. Doctrines Affected by Evolution
Belief in the supernatural inevitably waned. There was no place for miracles, no place for any
supernatural intervention on the part of God. That would be contrary to the workings of natural law. There
was no place for God. He became quite unnecessary. As one leading evolutionist years ago expressed it,
‘Evolution pushes the Creator out of doors.” There was no place for prayer, as that term has been known
throughout the history of the Christian church. For prayer is an act of communion with a personal God and
such communion has meaning only on the premise that God is free to act in response to our prayers. There
was no place for the Christ of the Bible, for His virgin birth, for His miraculous deeds, for His literal
resurrection, or for His bodily ascension. There was no place for the doctrine of the fall of man unless it be
a fall upward through the evolutionary ages. Hence there was no place for the doctrine of sin, unless it be
viewed as one of the vestigial remains of our animal heritage. But if there was no fall and no sin, then there
was no place for the atonement. Nor was there a place for the law of God. The Bible statement that God
wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger was explained away, as are other miraculous statements
of Scripture. But if we have no divine law we have no divine definition of sin. There was no place for the
doctrine of the Second Advent. Scientific and evolutionistic thought ruled it out altogether. A personal,
supernatural coming of Christ is contrary to the orderly processes of nature. Finally, there was no place in
the thinking of a rapidly increasing number of the clergy for any idea of a literal heaven. Heaven became a
state and not a place.
How true was the statement of Mrs. White in 1888, that 1he work of apostasy has not yet reached
its culmination.” The denial of the Christian doctrines just discussed has largely been subsequent to 1988.
In fact, it was not until the 1920’s that the Protestant apostasy came to such full fruitage that its true nature
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was evident to all. It was in 1928, for example, that a Modernist minister wrote two articles under the title
“A Modernist’s Criticism of Modernism,” in which he made the most amazing admissions concerning what
had taken place in the Protestant world. His confession is a startling commentary on the prophetic words,
‘Babylon is fallen.” The author of these articles, William Henry Spence, declares:
“The losses incident to the liberalizing of religion fall naturally into two classes:
“(1) Those endured by institutional religion;
“(2) Those affecting personal religious experience.”
He illustrates the first with this statement:
“The most obvious evidence of the weakening influence of liberalism on the church is the absenteeism of
the educated-or one should say, many of the educated. The acquisition of the liberal viewpoint has meant,
for great numbers of them, a lessening of loyalty to the church, and the forsaking of its altars.”
A Cause for “Deepest Distress”

On the second point he writes at length. Here are a few key paragraphs:
“There are some changes wrought by liberalism in the lives of men, which a pastor whose
vocation is the cure of souls, observes with deepest distress. As he watches the cooling of religious ardor,
the loosening of the grasp on spiritual realities, the progressive and easygoing tolerance of unethical
practices, the increasing neglect of the ‘means of grace? And the blurring of conviction through pride of
intellect, in one after another of his parishioners, his intimate friends and his fellow clergymen, he is
tempted to say now and then, adapting the words of Festus: ‘Much learning hath made thee apostate.-
This preacher has little sympathy, of course, for Fundamentalists. But he is willing to make this
damaging admission concerning them:
“Certainly the Fundamentalist with his faith in the divine kinship of man is nearer right, than those
liberals who, influenced by certain evolutionary theories, reduce him to a mere automaton, produced by
reaction to environment.” - The Congregationalist, Aug. 9, 1928.
As a Modernist, Spence, of course, believes that there has been great value in the ‘Historical study
of the Bible,” which means the higher critical analysis of Scripture which resulted in robbing the Bible of
its unique status as the infallible and inspired Word of God. But he confesses that some great and perhaps
irreparable damage has been done to the Scripture and thus to the faith of the multitudes. Says he:
“The destruction of the Bible’s infallibility has ruined its authority for multitudes. To some
liberals it has become little more than a source book of rather doubtful value for historical study. In the
resulting confusion, both the man in the crowd and the liberal scholar often are like a sailor who has thrown
over chart and compass, and vainly tries to steer his course under a sky whose stars are hidden by the
clouds.
“When one thinks of what the old faith in the Bible did for our fathers and mothers and the kind of
family life it inspired them to create, one feels less and less inclined to swagger over the fruits of the so-
called modern view of the Bible. With the Holy Book in their hands they felt themselves fortified by an
impregnable rock. They spoke to us of duty and grace with a confidence supported by producing evidence.
The printed page with its golden words gave them a sense of immediacy in their practice of the Divine
Presence. When faith grew dim the opening of the Good Book brought renewal. When they were confused
in any moral crisis, a quick turning to the sacred page gave them guidance. When sorrow and adversity
overtook them, the precious promises gave them unspeakable comfort. When they drew near to death, the
recollection of certain verses treasured in memory flung open the gates of new life to them.
“But what of us, the sons of such parents with the advantages of our higher learning, real or
supposed? Must we not confess that a glory has departed from us? Has our liberalism given us an
equivalent for that which we surrendered when we gave up our parents’ belief in the Book? The necessity is
upon us to find something to give us what the Bible gave them. The feeling of security in a trouble ridden
world, clearness and definiteness of religious convictions, the accent of authority in our testimony of
religious experience and a firm, sure hold of faith in Christ-or else liberalism will yet become the great
apostasy. “-Ibid.
A Startling Warning
Toward the close of his second article he utters this startling warning: “Just now modernists
should awake to the fact that a liberalism which tends toward a Godless humanism or rank atheism is
heading toward its own destruction. “-Ibid., Aug. 16, 1928.
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This amazing confession, written in 1928, was followed by many equally startling confessions in
the 1930’s, some of which have been quoted in a preceding chapter. But although Protestantism, which has
fallen away from the historic doctrines of Christianity, admits its sorry state, it takes no steps in any well-
defined or united way to return to these great Bible teachings. That is the present sad plight of
Protestantism. It may see the weakness of the skeptical scientific assumptions it began to accept in the
nineteenth century, which produced finally a loss of faith in Christian teachings. But there appears to be no
evidence that Protestantism tends to return or even to see the need of returning to the basic premises or
assumptions on which the Christian’s faith must be built. Walter Lippmann well wrote:
“If faith is to flourish there must be a conception of how the universe is governed to support it. It is
these supporting conceptions-the unconscious assumption that we are related to God as creatures to creator,
as vassals to a king, as children to a father-that the acids of modernity have eaten away.” - A Preface
Morals, p. 56.
Elsewhere in this same much-discussed work, Lippmann observes: “This is the first age, I think, in
the history of mankind when the circumstances of life have conspired with the intellectual habits of the
time to render any fixed and authoritative belief incredible to large masses of men.”-Ibid., p. 12.
The evidence seems clear that we have finally come to the a-v, of the complete, or virtually
complete, fulfillment of the second angel’s message. That means we have come to the day when we must
put a new emphasis on our preaching of the second angel’s message.
16. The Third Angel’s Message

THE THIRD angel’s message as recorded in Revelation 14: 9-11 has two aspects, a negative and a
positive. There is the warning against receiving the mark of authority of an apostate power, and by clear
implication there is the call to receive the mark of divine authority, the seal of the living God, who is
distinguished as the Creator of heaven and earth. In other words, the third angel’s message is a warning
against the keeping of Sunday and a call to men to keep God’s true Sabbath day.
The true Sabbath has two distinguishing marks: (1) The mark of time. “The seventh day is the
Sabbath of the Lord thy God.” (2) The purpose. The Sabbath was instituted as a memorial of a certain
historical event, the creation of the world--in six days the Lord made heaven and earth.”
Hence, in order to understand the importance of the Sabbath and thus of the third angel’s message,
we must see the significance of the creation event which the Sabbath memorializes. And we must see this
in the setting of the facts already presented regarding the disappearance of the very idea of God, which is
the climax of the modern apostasy in Christendom.
The Genesis doctrine of creation presents the true doctrine of God, on which all other doctrines
must be reared. The creation record presents God as above and apart from the things He creates. In the
language of theology this is known as the doctrine of the transcendence of God. Only as we think of God as
transcendent can we think of Him as personal. Either God is apart from and above all created things or else
He is a part of the universe itself. There is a vast distinction. Much of the pagan world early fell into the
pantheistic heresy of thinking that God is in the brook, the tree, the mountain, the river, the winds-yes,
everywhere in general but nowhere in particular. The result was that the very idea of God lost all meaning.
Modern religionists who were horrified at the thought of dismissing God from the scientific processes in
our modern world, largely fell into this other evil of identifying God with nature and thus destroying any
idea of a personal God.
The Bible record declares: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” No more
primary or more important truth could have been set forth in the opening words of Holy Writ. Before all
else, God. Before there was a mountain or a valley or a stream or a cloud, before even the earth itself, there
i& the great God. An intelligent power, apart from this earth of ours, at work to bring forth order and every
kind of created thing-that. is the Bible doctrine regarding God and our world.
Bible Presents All-powerful God

The creation account presents to us not only a transcendent but also an all-powerful God. Even
among those who have held to the idea of God there has often been found the heresy that God is limited by
the universe in which He dwells; in other words, that He is not all-powerful. The modern skeptic scoffs at
the thought that God knows all about every one of us. The creation account pictures God as being so
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powerful that He need only speak and even inanimate nature responds at once. “He spoke, and it was done;
he commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 33:9. A majestic picture of God’s absolute and immediate control
of all things is given to us in the frequent refrain of the creation narrative, “and it was so.” “God said, Let
there be a firmament . . . and it was so.” “God said, Let the earth bring forth grass . . . and it was so.” “God
said, Let there be lights in the firmament . . . : and it was so.”
The prophets of old presented the fact of creation as one of the proofs that God is omnipotent.
Wrote Isaiah: ‘Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that brings out their
host by number: He calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not
one fails.” Isaiah 40:26. Then follows the lesson for the individual soul: “Why sayest thou, 0 Jacob, and
spoke, 0 Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Has thou not
known? Has thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, faints
not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding.” Verses 27, 28.
A Personal God Set Forth

The creation story sets before us the truth of a personal God, and it is this truth that constitutes the
citadel of revealed religion, the citadel so violently attacked today by secularists and liberal theologians. No
blind impersonal force moves through the opening pages of Holy Writ. We hear the stately stepping of a
personal God from the beginning of the record right through to the sorrowful moment when “the Lord God
walking in the garden in the cool of the day” met the sinful pair and brought their Eden residence to an end.
How forcefully is the fact of a personal God brought to our minds by the declaration, “God said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness.” Genesis 1:26.
The opening chapters of Genesis set before us a moral God. One of the most seductive delusions
of the devil is that right and wrong are merely relative terms to be defined in relation to changing customs
and viewpoints from generation to generation in various lands. Such a view makes meaningless the whole
idea of fixed and eternal standards of right, by which all men shall finally be judged. The Bible in its very
opening chapters gives us a picture of a moral God who is directly concerned over absolute standards of
right and wrong. In the Genesis record is the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” There is no
mistaking the primary truth that moral standards have a place in men’s lives, and that the distinguishing
mark of sin is that it is disobedience to the commands of a personal God. If that truth were sensed today,
what a difference it might make in the attitude of many persons toward sin!
One cannot read the creation story and the comments upon it throughout the Scriptures without
being, profoundly impressed that God has a plan and a purpose for our world. One of the most cynical
aspects of the evolution theory as generally held, and of various false views concerning God, is that our
world is the result of accident and chance, that there is no purpose or destiny to life. A whole host of evils
easily spring from such a hopeless view. But that dark view of life is not found in the Bible. We read that
when God created living creatures He placed them in a well-ordered world. There is reason and purpose for
each of His actions. Isaiah wrote, “Thus says the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed
the earth and made it; he bath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited.” Isaiah
45:16. In the Genesis record man stands forth in Eden as the climax of a planned work of God, a being in
God’s image, designed by His Creator to live in holiness and obedience and never-ending happiness in a
perfect world.
Creation and Plans of Salvation

Not only does the creation account in Genesis give us a true conception of God, it gives us also a
true setting for the plan of salvation and final restitution. Indeed, the creation story provides the only setting
in which the whole plan of salvation can have real meaning. The rejection of the Genesis account makes
meaningless that divine plan. Sin, salvation, the atonement-these and other key words of the Bible are
robbed of all meaning when they are not viewed in the setting of the Bible creation. It is only when we see
sin against the spotless background of Eden that we can sense the true hideousness of rebellion against
God.
Finally, the creation account has meaning and purpose, in relation not only to our present world
and to God’s plan of salvation, but also to the world to come. A true picture of the final reward of the
righteous is possible only as we know and believe in the Genesis story of the beginnings of our world.
Nothing aids so greatly in forming a correct view of the nature of man as a true picture of the final abode of
the righteous, and that true picture is obtained by having a right understanding of the nature of the original
abode. We find that Adam dwelt in a real world as a real being, that he had a home, and that he did such
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real things as dressing and keeping the Garden of Eden.

When we read that God’s plan is to restore the lost estate by creating a new earth, we can properly
conclude that the final place of reward for the righteous will be a real place. We can take literally the words
of Isaiah regarding those who will dwell on the “new earth”: “They shall build houses, and inhabit them;
and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.” Isaiah 65:21 .
With such a view of our future abode, we are prepared to see the significance of the resurrection of
the body, a truth so plainly taught in the Bible, and so little taught in the Christian churches. A real place of
abode calls for real people to inhabit it. The idea of disembodied spirits forever flitting about in a heaven as
misty and vague as the spirits does not square with the Bible picture of the new earth.
Creation the Foundation Truth

The great truth of the creation stands revealed, therefore, as the foundation truth on which the
whole structure of Bible doctrine is reared. How important, then, that it should ever be kept bright in the
minds of men.
Hence it follows that belief in the Genesis account of creation is the distinguishing mark of a man
who believes (1) in a personal God with infinite qualities and powers. (2) In the Bible as the one supreme
authority. (3) And in the divine plan of salvation by which a holy God redeems His fallen children,
sanctifies them, and finally places them in Eden restored.
The Sabbath is the mark, or sign, of the man who believes in creation and thus in all that creation
signifies. This statement is self-evident, for the commandment is explicit that the reason for the keeping of
the Sabbath is that we shall remember the great fact that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth and
rested the seventh day. James G. Murphy, in his Commentary on the Book of Exodus, well remarks:
“The observance of the Sabbath connects man with the origin of his race, with the six days’
creation, and with the Creator Himself. The connection is manifestly a historical one. He that observes the
Sabbath aright holds the history of that which it celebrates to be authentic, and therefore believes in the
creation of the first man, in the creation of a lair abode for man in the space of six days, in the primeval and
absolute creation of the heavens and the earth, and, as a necessary antecedent to all this, in the Creator, who
at the close of His latest creative effort rested on the seventh day. The Sabbath thus becomes the sign by
which the believers in a historical Revelation are distinguished from those who have allowed these great
facts to fade from their remembrance (Exodus 31:13). The observance of the Sabbath, then, becomes the
characteristic of those who cherish the recollections of the origin of their race, and who worship God not
merely as Elohim, the everlasting almighty, but as Jehovah, the historical God, the Creator, who has
revealed Himself to man from the dawn of his existence as the God of love, and afterwards of mercy and
grace, of promise and performance. “-Comments on Exodus 20:8-11, p. 230.
Significant Facts of Bible History

In the light of all this, how meaningful, therefore, are the following facts of Bible history:
1. God established the memorial of creation at the very beginning of the history of the world. The
sanctifying of the Sabbath occurred on the seventh day of the first week of time.
2. Apostasy and degeneracy began when man failed to see beyond creation to the Creator. As Paul
vividly declares in the first chapter of Romans, men would not retain God in their memory; they served the
creature more than the Creator. Man would not worship the true God but turned instead to idol worship,
with consequent spiritual and moral pollution.
3. God declared that the Sabbath was to be kept by Israel as a sign “that you may know that 1 am
the Lord that cloth sanctify you.” The Sabbath was to be “a sign between me and the children of Israel for
ever: for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.”
Exodus 31:13, 17. The Sabbath was a sign of the creative power of God, a sign of a personal relationship
between God and man, a sign of the purity and holiness and perfection that distinguish God and all His
acts. Hence the Sabbath was ever to be a sign to the children of Israel that the God whom they worshiped
had lifted them above the pit of moral corruption into which the heathen round about them had fallen, that
He had power to create in them clean hearts and make them new creatures.
The history of Israel as set forth, foe example, by Ezekiel shows that they failed to keep holy
God’s Sabbath day as He had commanded. The record declares: “They ... polluted my Sabbaths: for their
heart went after their idols.” Ezekiel 20:16. The pollution of the Sabbath, that is, the failure to remember it
and thus the failure to remember the true God memorialized by it, was directly related to the evil of turning
to idol worship. In other words, they could not turn to idol worship without profaning the Sabbath. The
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Sabbath stood ever as a barrier against idolatry. The Israelite who kept the Sabbath of God provided for all
men a sign that he had no part in pagan idolatry. The fearful record of man’s degeneracy, as set forth in the
opening chapter of the book of Romans, would never have had to be written if men had remembered
always God’s holy Sabbath day which He sanctified at the end of creation week.
Facts of Post-Biblical History

In view of the great significance of creation to a true conception of Scriptural doctrines, how
meaningful, also, are the following facts of post-Biblical history:
1. The rise of the mystery of iniquity in the early centuries of the Christian Era was paralleled by
the decline of the Bible Sabbath. There was no one cause for the decline. Nor will church historians ever be
able to agree on the relative importance of all the forces that served to bring the Sabbath into eclipse. But in
the setting of the facts already presented and others to be set forth, it is proper to conclude that there is a
direct relationship between the rise of the apostasy and the decline of the Sabbath.
2. The mystical allegorizing of the early church Fathers spiritualized away the Sabbath. They
talked of a new day that was to commemorate a new event, the resurrection.
3. The thin line of Sabbath keepers through the Dark Ages was uniformly found in the ranks of
Rome’s opponents.
4. The decline of God’s holy Sabbath day was followed by the rise of numerous holy days for
saints. This is understandable. Holy days are ever the symbols of a religion, its rallying points in terms of
time.
Facts of Reformation Days and Onward

Consider, next, the significance of these historical facts of Reformation times and onward:
1. Luther and Calvin quite largely discarded the saints’ days and other annual holy days because
they viewed these as marks of Rome’s power and apostasy. In fact, the Reformers swung so far in their first
fervor over the liberty of the gospel as to question the need of keeping even a weekly holy day. Calvin
declared that he could go out and bowl on the green on Sunday to show his liberty in the gospel.
2. The fact, however, that these great Reformers failed to emphasize as clearly as they might the
spiritual significance of a weekly holy day resulted erelong in a lax keeping of Sunday on the Continent.
3. Puritans in England in the seventeenth century sought to purify the Church of England. They
saw the laxity on the Continent in regard to Sunday. They concluded that Christians needed set times for
worship if strong and consistent Christian lives were to be developed. They also realized that Sunday could
not make a claim on the Christian conscience without a “Thus says the Lord.” Hence they sought to place
Sunday squarely on the fourth commandment of the Ten Commandments. They succeeded in doing this by
spiritualizing away the literal, exact meaning of the phrase “the seventh day” and declaring that it meant
simply one day in seven. That interpretation was woven into the Westminster Confession in AD. 1647 and
thus into the thinking of much of Protestantism, for the Westminster Confession is probably more widely
known than any other of the great Reformation creeds. (See chapter 7)
Old and New Creation

Sunday keeping theologians have not been wholly blind to the fact that the Sabbath command was
specifically instituted to memorialize the historical creation recorded in Genesis. Hence, these theologians
have often sought to give consistency to their belief by declaring that the seventh day of the week
memorializes the “old creation,” and that the first day of the week memorializes the “new creation,” the re-
creation in Christ Jesus.
However, there have been theologians frank enough to admit that Sunday fails to measure up fully
in this matter of a memorial of creation. In a noted commentary prepared by the Church of England is
found this comment on Exodus 20:8:
“The day [Sunday] which we observe, in accordance with ecclesiastical usage, holds another place
in the week [than the Sabbath] and its connection with the creation of the world has thus been put into the
background.”-Holy Bible With Commentary.
But in spite of a damaging admission like this, the advocates of Sunday have generally sought to
make Sunday appear as though it stood on the solid ground of the Sabbath command. In reality it has ever
rested on a foundation of sand, the shifting sands of spiritualizing interpretation. And like a house built on
the sand, it looked as solid as though on rock, until the storm came. Or to speak literally: The plausible
proponents of Sunday as a memorial of the “new creation” did not realize, in the days before Darwin, how
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completely the “new creation” is dependent on the “old creation” for its significance. The only sure
foundation of the new creation” is the “old creation,” the one recorded in Genesis. The same is true of all
other doctrines, as we have already discovered.
When the winds of the evolution theory began to blow in the last half of the nineteenth century,
churchmen were not braced against the storm by any sure footing on the weekly memorial of the creation of
the world. The Bible Sabbath they had relegated to a bygone day. They thought they had greatly improved
on the simple Ten Commandments command to keep a particular day in memory of a particular event.
Most of them thought they had given an all-sufficient reason for their change by declaring that the original
Sabbath was Jewish, as though there could be anything Jewish about the Garden of Eden, where the
Sabbath was instituted, or Adam and Eve, to whom the Sabbath was given, or the seventh day of the week,
which was the time set apart. Ah, they had something more modern, a new Sabbath to honor a “new
creation.” Though they did not realize it, those who led out in promoting this view in the early days of
Protestantism were the original Modernists in Protestant ranks. The practical effect of their exalting the first
day of the week in honor of the resurrection of Christ was that the creation of the world inevitably seemed
of relatively small importance. It was simply the “old creation.”
Not only were churchmen not prepared to meet the evolution storm, they were actually
conditioned to accept evolution, even though it contradicted the clearest statements of Genesis and other
portions of the Bible. Whatever consciousness churchmen might have had of the importance of the literal
creation, as recorded in Genesis, was dulled and blunted because the memorial of that creation, the seventh
day Sabbath, was not remembered. This blunted sense, coupled with the practice of spiritualizing away the
literal meaning of Scripture, provides the chief reason why churchmen found themselves quite
unconsciously susceptible to the claims of the evolution theory. As we have already learned, they had
spiritualized away the literal statements of Holy Writ regarding the Second Advent. They had declared that
the resurrection that accompanies the Advent was simply a rising from spiritual death of those dead in
trespasses and sins. As regards the Sabbath, which stands in opposition to evolution, they had spiritualized
away the definite seventh day and the definite historical creation, so as to make the fourth commandment
actually appear to enjoin a new day in honor of a new event.
Long Days of Genesis

Paralleling this, though not directly related, was the interpretation that was given by some
churchmen to the word day in the creation record of Genesis. By simplest definition and by the quite
unanimous agreement of Bible students through all the centuries, the word day there used means a literal
day, a twenty four-hour period. But one after another of Protestant divines, even before Darwin’s time,
began to declare that these creation days were long periods of time. When Darwin arose, this played into
his hands, for time was what the evolution theory needed more than all else if it was to be viewed as even
plausible. Indeed, if creation week was really the sum of seven long periods of time, what should hinder
men from believing that almost any kind of slow transition of life forms might have occurred? What is
more, if the concise Genesis record of that first week is expanded to countless ages, we are only one step
removed from believing that Genesis is not really presenting accurate history, but only a symbolical
summary of vast changes that have taken place in our earth over an interminably long and shadowy past.
Even before Darwin’s day all these spiritualizing tendencies in relation to creation and the Sabbath
it memorialized played a part in making churchmen susceptible to the higher critical theories of the Bible,
which began to spread their baleful influence over Christian minds in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Central to the higher critical theory was the claim that the books of Moses were not strictly
historical, that the early records of man’s life on earth are hopelessly mixed with folklore and myth.
For these and other reasons that might be given, the evolution theory gained rapid acceptance in
Protestant circles. A Bible undermined by spiritualizing methods, by higher critical arguments, and by the
skeptical scientific theories dominant as the nineteenth century closed, left the way fully open for a
brazenly new theology. This new theology, as earlier described, climaxed in a bold attack on the central
idea of a personal God. The point of departure of Modernism, it can never be too often stated, is the
foundation chapters of the Bible, the creation record. When Protestant Christendom finally split asunder a
few decades ago, the cleavage ran all the way back to the first chapter of the Bible, back to the beginning of
the world. That cleavage presents us today with a large and steadily increasing group called Modernists,
who control most church organizations. On the other hand is a group, who for lack of a more exact word
may still be described as Fundamentalists, who are generally on the defensive, and are declining in
numbers.
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Third Angel Fittingly Follows First and Second

In the setting of these facts, let us turn ‘ directly to the question of the preaching of the third
angel’s message. Both Darwinism and the Advent movement developed in the latter half of the nineteenth
century. Could any message be more timely or logical as a climax to the first and second angels’ messages
than this third one that warns men against the keeping of a false day and by clear implication calls upon
them to keep God’s true day, the memorial of creation?
In the 1850’s, when the third angel’s message began to be definitely preached, it was impossible
for the pioneers to see the full import of the message. They were not prophets. They could not foresee the
vast changes that were to take place in the secular and religious world in the century that lay ahead. Hence,
they preached the Sabbath largely in terms of the time factor. They stressed fervently the highly pertinent
and Scriptural fact that the seventh, and not the first, day is God’s Sabbath. Hence, their preaching on the
Sabbath was often distinguished by an extended discussion of the meaning of the law, the perpetuity of it,
and, of course, their preaching included, and rightly so, a vigorous denunciation of Sunday as a mark of
apostasy.
Now the servant of the Lord, early in the history of this Advent movement, forecast that the time
would come when the Sabbath would be preached more fully. It is no distortion of her words to say that
they meant not only the preaching of the Sabbath over a wider area but preaching the Sabbath in greater
fullness of meaning. The time has conic for such preaching.
How To Preach The Sabbath More Fully

And how shall the Sabbath be preached in greater fullness? By preaching the Sabbath more fully
in terms of its purpose, that is, its purpose as a memorial of creation.
This means no minimizing of the significance of time, of the fact that the Sabbath is the seventh
day. But the factor of time is the basis of the real reason for the Sabbath-the seventh day is the Sabbath
because it is that day that serves with true historical accuracy as the memorial of creation. God designated a
particular day, not arbitrarily, but because it is integral to the historical fact that He wished to memorialize.
We as Adventists believe fully that time subserves purpose in the Sabbath command, but in actual
practice and preaching we often fail to stress as we should the purpose of the Sabbath, that it is a memorial
of creation. If we refer to the creation feature of the command we too often deal with it in the negative, that
is, that Sunday is not the true Sabbath because it is not a true memorial of creation. That argument is good
as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. It does not set forth the Sabbath commandment with all the
force and significance with which it ought to he set forth in these days when the creation record in Genesis
is the point of departure for the whole modern apostasy in Christendom.
The pioneers may be pardoned for not stressing fully the creation feature of the command, but
there is no excuse for our not doing so. If we are to proclaim the Sabbath more fully we must see its full
significance, that is, we must see it in the setting of conditions in the world today. Only thus will we truly
have present truth for the world. We should never forget that all three messages of the angels were given to
meet specific conditions at a specific time in the history of the world.
It is when we see the Sabbath in the setting of the modern apostasy that we can best understand the
unique status of Adventists in the religious world. This Advent movement is the only religious body with a
message that directly meets the key heresy of our age, the evolution theory, and calls on all who wish to
come out of Babylon, out of apostasy, to accept the true sign of allegiance to the living God, the Creator.
We stand revealed today as calling on men to join with us not simply in a technical dispute over the seventh
or the first day of the week or to keep another day just to be different. We call on men to keep the Sabbath
as a sign of allegiance to the Creator of the heavens and the earth, as a badge of loyalty to the great truths of
revelation, all of which rest on the opening chapters of the Bible.
Yes, we stand unique today in the religious world. Fundamentalists, despite their devotion to
Scripture and their loyalty and love toward their Lord, do not have the defense against evolution that we
have, nor are they prepared to rally men and women to a great sign of allegiance to the true God as Seventh
day Adventists can. In many instances Fundamentalists hold to the long-ages view of creation days, which
plays directly into the hands of the evolution theory. So, far from having a Sabbath command to set in
opposition to evolution, they have actually sought to eliminate the Sabbath command from the Ten
Commandments, while inconsistently holding that the remaining nine are binding. Yet it is the Sabbath
command that reveals the Author of the law and gives to that law its binding authority.
More than any others, Fundamentalists, as we have noted, speak fervently of Sunday as a
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memorial of the “new creation,” and claim that it is a vast improvement over what they call the “old
creation.” But they do not seem to realize that this “new creation” has no meaning without the “old.” When
Modernists rejected the Genesis record of creation, it was not long before the birth, death, resurrection, and
ministry of our Lord became meaningless. When the foundation was removed, the superstructure collapsed.
Fundamentalists are in the strange position of concentrating on the superstructure and minimizing the
importance of the foundation.
Fundamentalists speak fervently of a personal God and of creation. In full sincerity they deplore
evolutionary attacks on the Bible. They mourn the split in the churches, a result of evolution. Yet they turn
about and denounce the seventh day Sabbath that is the symbol of creation, the constant reminder of it and
of a personal God, and thus of an authoritative Bible. They have only scathing denunciation for the one
religious body, Seventh day Adventists, that is wholly free of the evolution heresy. And that denunciation
focuses on our distinctive Sabbath doctrine, which is our weekly protest against evolution, our weekly
means of keeping fresh in our minds the fact that in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth.
Call Men Back to Bible

In calling men back to the Bible Sabbath we call them back to the authority of the Bible in
opposition to (1) the authority of reason, which gives proof of its claims in the marvels of the scientific age,
and. (2) the authority of Rome, which gives Sunday as proof of its claims.
What men crave more than anything else is a note of authority in their spiritual lives. Our present
age is distinguished by doubt and uncertainty. Man needs something beyond himself. Reason, despite its
marvelous results in scientific discovery, does not satisfy in the spiritual realm. In fact, its deficiency is
most evident in these postwar days, which dazzle us with scientific findings. Thus there are really only two
claims on men’s spiritual allegiance at this time-the claims of Rome and the claims of the Bible.
It is a remarkable fact that in these present times no small number of intellectuals have become
converts to Rome, hoping to find in her a spiritual haven. Thus is fulfilled the remarkable statement written
by Mrs. White in 1888. We quote in part her prophetic words:
“A day of great intellectual darkness has been shown to be favorable to the success of the papacy.
It will yet be demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is equally favorable for its success. In past
ages, when men were without God’s word, and without the knowledge of the truth, their eyes were
blindfolded, and thousands were ensnared, not seeing the net spread for their feet. In this generation there
are many whose eyes become dazzled by the glare of human speculations, ‘science falsely so called,’ they
discern not the net, and walk into it as readily as if blindfolded. God designed that man’s intellectual
powers should be held as a gift from his Maker, and should be employed in the service of truth and
righteousness; but when pride and ambition are cherished, and men exalt their own theories above the word
of God, then intelligence can accomplish greater harm than ignorance. Thus the false science of the present
day, which undermines faith in the Bible, will prove as successful in preparing the way for the acceptance
of the papacy, with its pleasing forms, as did the withholding of knowledge in opening the way for its
aggrandizement in the Dark Ages.”. - The Great Controversy, pp. 572, 573.
We stand forth today as a people who believe in the Bible, the whole Bible, without any
spiritualizing of its literal words. We believe in the Bible from the first chapter of Genesis to the last
chapter of Revelation. We believe in the whole of the moral law of God and in the Sabbath command,
which gives binding authority to the law. We believe in the Sabbath as the memorial of the direct
relationship of a personal, moral God to this world of ours, a relationship so direct that man was made In
the divine image and likeness. We keep God’s holy Sabbath day because we believe literally in the
historical record of the Bible from the very first chapter onward. We see in the Sabbath a bulwark against
the modern apostasy in Christendom that undermines the authority of the Bible, by undermining its
foundations.
Surely the time has come for us to arise and proclaim the Sabbath more fully, to see the Sabbath
not only in the awesome setting of Sinai but also in the perfect setting of Eden. The Sabbath is not merely a
question of days but a question of belief or disbelief in the foundation truths on which the whole Scriptures
of God rest. It is for us to build up the foundations of many generations.
17. The Law of God in Church Creeds
88
UNQUESTIONABLY, the point of greatest controversy between Seventh day Adventists and their
theological critics is with regard to the law of God. This is understandable, for if it can be proved that the
law of God has been abolished, then the seventh day Sabbath has been abolished also. On the contrary, if
the law of God stands revealed as perpetual in its claim upon men, then the fourth commandment confronts
us with its injunction to keep holy the “seventh day.”
The chief argument of those who seek to prove that the Ten Commandments has been abolished is
this: The Bible speaks of only one law, which includes moral and ceremonial precepts. The Bible also
speaks of the law’s being abolished at the cross Therefore the Ten Commandments has been abolished.
Those who thus reason seek to give added force to their argument and to make Adventists appear to be the
promoters of strange doctrine, by implying, when they do not explicitly state, that the idea that two laws are
described in the Bible is a peculiarly Adventist doctrine. For example, one writer declares: “The place to
find emphasis placed upon these supposed distinctions [between the moral and ceremonial laws] is in the
lectures and printed matter of the Seventh day Adventists. Their ‘two laws’ theory is based upon mere
assumptions, incorrect applications of Scripture, and detached Biblical phrases extracted from their proper
connections.”
This statement has been widely quoted in the literature of critics. If it means anything, it means
that Adventists are unique, in contrast to Christendom at large, in holding to the doctrine that the Bible sets
forth two laws. The most charitable way to view this statement is to say that its author and its many fervent
quoters have never carefully read the creeds of Christendom from Reformation days onward.
From Reformation times down to the definite organization of the main Protestant bodies, the
confessions of faith and creeds of Protestantism have generally contained some statement concerning the
law of God. An examination of these statements reveals that Protestantism in general believes three
important facts concerning the law:
1. That the Ten Commandments is God’s moral standard for Christians.
2. That there is a clear distinction between the Ten Commandments and the ceremonial and other
laws of ancient Israel.
3. That obedience to the Ten Commandments is not to be construed as being contrary in any way
to grace-that law and gospel belong together in the Christian life.
For some readers, two words in the following quotations may require explanation. The word
catholic, written thus with a small c and coupled with the word church in the Protestant creeds, means the
whole body of Christian believers. The word catholic simply means “universal.” The word symbol is used
as a synonym for creed or confession.
The text of these creedal statements and the quoted comments on them are those given in the
authoritative source work by Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom.*
The Waldensian Catechism

“The Waldensian Catechism ... must have been written before 1500.... It consists of fifty-seven
questions.... and as many answers. ... It embodies the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s prayer, and the Ten
Commandments.... Under the head of Faith we have a practical exposition of the Apostles’ Creed and the
Ten Commandments, showing their subjective bearing on a living faith.” - Volume 1, pp. 572, 573.
“9. What is living faith?
“It is faith active in love (as the apostle testifies, Galatians 5:15), that is, by keeping God’s
commandments. Living faith is to believe in God, that is, to love Him and to keep His commandments. “-
Ibid., p. 575.
The Confession of the Waldenses, AD. 1655

“This confession belongs to the Calvinistic family.... It is still in force, or at least highly prized
among the Waldenses in Italy. The occasion which called it forth entitles it to special consideration. It was
prepared and issued in 1655, together with an appeal to Protestant nations, in consequence of one of the
most cruel persecutions which Roman bigotry could inspire.” - Volume 3, p. 757.
“We believe, . . .
-XXXIII. Finally, that we ought to receive the symbol of the apostles, the Lord’s prayer, and the
decalogue as fundamentals of our faith and our devotion. “-Ibid., p. 768.
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Luther’s Small Catechism, AD. 1529

Speaking of this catechism in connection with the Heidelberg and the Shorter Westminster
Catechisms, Schaff says: ... These are the three most popular and useful catechisms that Protestantism has
produced.” - Volume 1, p. 543. Part 1 is entitled “The Ten Commandments,” consisting chiefly of a series
of questions on each of the Ten Commandments in order. Then follow immediately the two questions and
answers given below.
“What does God say about all these commandments?
“He says this:
“I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love
Me and keep My commandments.’
“What does this mean?
“Answer:
“God threatens to punish all who transgress these commandments: we should, therefore, fear His
anger, and do nothing against such commandments. But He promises grace and every blessing to all who
keep them: we should, therefore, love and trust in Him, and gladly obey His commandments.” - Volume 3,
p. 77.
The Heidelberg Catechism, AD. 1563

“The Heidelberg Catechism was translated into all the European and many Asiatic languages.... It
is stated that, next to the Bible, the ‘Imitation of Christ,’ by Thomas ;1 Kempis, and Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s
Progress,’ no book has been more frequeptly translated, more widely circulated or used As a standard of
public doctrine the Heidelberg Catechism is the most catholic and popular of all the Reformed symbols.’~-
Volume 1, pp. 536, 540. Schaff adds that this “was the first catechism planted on American soil,” and that it
is “the honored symbol of the Dutch and German Reformed Churches in America. “-Ibid., p. 549.
“Question 92-What is the law of God?

“Answer.-[The answer consists of a verbatim quotation of the Ten Commandments as given in Exodus
20:1-17.]
“Ques. 93-How are these commandments divided?
“Ans.-Into two tables, the first of which teaches us, in four commandments, what duties we owe to
God; the second, in six, what duties we owe to our neighbor.”
[The next twenty questions, 94 to 113, deal with the significance of each of the Ten
Commandments.]
“Ques. 114-Can those who are converted to God keep these commandments perfectly?
“Ans.-No; but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this
obedience, yet so that with earnest purpose they begin to live, not only according to some but according to
all the commandments of God.
“Ques. 115-Why, then, cloth God so strictly enjoin upon us the Ten Commandments, since in this
life no one can keep them?
“Ans.-First, that all our life long we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and so
the more earnestly seek forgiveness of sins and righteousness in Christ; secondly, that we may continually
strive and beg from God the grace of the Holy Ghost, so as to become more and more changed into the
image of God, till we attain finally to full perfection after this life.”. - Volume 3, pp. 340-349.
The Form (or Formula) of Concord, AD. 1577

“The last of the Lutheran Confessions The Formula of Concord is, next to the Augsburg
Confession, the most important theological standard of the Lutheran Church, but differs from it as the
sectarian symbol of Lutheranism, while the other is its catholic symbol.” - Volume 1, pp. 258, 338. The
object of this Formula was to bring harmony into Lutheranism after some thirty years of theological
disputation. Among the many questions raised by various theologians was that of the proper relation of the
law to the gospel. Schaff well observes in this connection: -Protestantism in its joyful enthusiasm for the
freedom and all-sufficiency of the gospel, was strongly tempted to antinomianism [no-law-ism], but
restrained by its moral force and the holy character of the gospel itself.” - lbid., p. 277. The following
quotation from the Formula of Concord shows how clearly and how vigorously the no-law doctrine was
repudiated:
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ART. VI-OF THE THIRD USE OF THE LAW
STATEMENT OF THE CONTROVERSY

“Since it is established that the law of God was given to men for three causes. First, that a certain
external discipline might be preserved, and wild and intractable men might be restrained, as it were, by
certain barriers. Secondly, that by the law men might be brought to an acknowledgment of their sins.
Thirdly, that regenerate men, to all of whom, nevertheless, much of the flesh still cleaves, for that very
reason may have some certain rule after which they may and ought to shape their life, etc. A controversy
has arisen among some few theologians concerning the third use of the law, to wit: whether the law is to be
inculcated upon the regenerate also, and its observation urged upon them or not? Some have judged that the
law should be urged, others have denied it.
AFFIRMATIVE
“The sound and godly doctrine concerning this controversy. “ 1. We believe, teach, and confess
that although they who truly believe in Christ, and are sincerely converted to God, are through Christ set
free from the curse and constraint of the law. They are not, nevertheless, on that account without law,
inasmuch as the Son of God redeemed them for the very reason that they might meditate on the law of God
day and night, and continually exercise themselves in the keeping thereof (Psalm 1:2; 119:1 sqq.). For not
even our first parents, even before the fall, lived wholly without law, which was certainly at that time
graven on their hearts, because the Lord had created them after His own image. (Genesis 1:26 sq.; 2:16
sqq.; 3:3).
“2. We believe, teach, and confess that the preaching of the law should be urged not only upon
those who have not faith in Christ, and do not yet repent, but also upon those who truly believe in Christ,
are truly converted to God, and regenerated and are justified by faith. . . . [Sections 3 to 6 amplify the
foregoing statement.]
NEGATIVE
“Rejection of false doctrine.
“We repudiate therefore, as a false and pernicious dogma, contrary to Christian discipline and true
piety, the teaching that the law of God (in such wise as is described above) is not to be set forth before the
godly and true believers, but only before the ungodly, unbelievers, and impenitent, and to be urged upon
these alone.”. - Volume 3, pp. 130-135.
The Scotch Confession of Faith, AD. 1560

“Subscription [to this Confession] was required from all ministers [in Scotland] first in 1572.
From that time till the Revolution of 1688 this native Confession was the only legally recognized doctrinal
standard of both the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches in Scotland. ... Edward Irving ... bestowed this
encomium upon it: ‘This document is the pillar of the Reformation Church of Scotland.’ “-Volume 1, pp.
682, 684, 685. The old spelling is given, but with possibly a few exceptions the meaning can easily be
understood.
The Second Helvetic Confession, AD. 1566

This confession was written by Henry Bullinger, of Zurich, Switzerland, Zwingh’s successor.
“Bullinger ... preserved and completed the work of his predecessor [Zwingli], and exerted, by his example
and writings, a commanding influence throughout the Reformed Church inferior only to that of Calvin.”
“The Helvetic Confession is the most widely adopted, and hence the most authoritative of all the
Continental Reformed symbols, with the exception of the Heidelberg Catechism.... Upon the whole, the
Second Helvetic Confession, as to theological merit, occupies the first rank among the Reformed
confessions. “-Volume 1, pp. 391, 394, 395. This confession is accompanied by a number of explanatory
footnotes, as is the case with various of the creeds and symbols. These footnotes have been placed in
brackets in the text.
CHAPTER X11-OF THE LAW OF GOD

“We teach that the will of God is set down unto us in the law of God; to wit, what He would have
us to do, or not to do, what is good and just, or what is evil and unjust. We therefore confess that ‘the law is
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good and holy’ (Romans 7:12). And that this law is, by the finger of God, either ‘written in the hearts of
men’ (Romans 2:15), and so is called the law of nature, or engraved in the two tables of stone, and more
largely expounded in the books of Moses (Exodus 20:17; Deut. 5:22). For plainness’ sake we divide it into
the moral law, which is contained in the commandments, or the two tables expounded in the books of
Moses. Into the ceremonial, which does appoint ceremonies and the worship of God; and into the judicial
law, which is occupied about political and domestic affairs.
‘We believe that the whole will of God, and all necessary precepts, for every part of this life, are
fully delivered in this law. . . .
“We teach that this law was not given to men, that we should be justified by keeping it; but that,
by the knowledge thereof, we might rather acknowledge our infirmity, sin, and condemnation; and so,
despairing of our strength, might turn unto Christ by faith. . . .
“The law of God [to wit, the moral law, comprehended in the Ten Commandments], therefore, is
thus far abrogated; that is, it does not henceforth condemn us, neither work wrath in us; ‘for we are under
grace, and not under the law’ (Romans 6:14). Moreover, Christ did fulfill all the figures of the law;
wherefore the shadow ceased when the body came, so that, in Christ, we have now all truth and fullness.
Yet we do not therefore disdain or reject the law. We remember the words of the Lord, saying, ‘I came not
to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them’ (Matthew 5:17). We know that in the law [to wit, in
the moral law] are described unto us the kinds of virtues and vices. We know that the Scripture of the law
[to wit, the ceremonial law], if it be expounded by the gospel, is very profitable to the church, and that
therefore the reading of it is not to be banished out of the church. For although the countenance of Moses
was covered with a veil, yet the apostle affirms that ‘the veil is taken away and abolished by Christ’ (2
Corinthians 3:14). We condemn all things which the old or new heretics have taught against the law of
God.” - Volume 3, pp. 854-856.
The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England, AD. 1571

The official statement of doctrine of the Church of England. In 1801 the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the United States of America adopted the Thirty-nine Articles with minor deletions and
variations. Article IX, “Of the Resurrection of Christ,” reads the same in the American Revision of 1801 as
in the original English edition of 1571. To avoid the old English spelling, we quote from the 1801 revision.
ARTICLE VI - OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

“The Old Testament is not contrary to the New; for both in the Old and New Testament
everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man.
Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for transitory promises.
Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not bind Christian men,
nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding,
no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.”-
lbid., pp. 491, 492.
American Revision of the Thirty-nine Articles by the Protestant Episcopal Church, AD. 1801
ARTICLE VI-OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being
both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old fathers did look only for
transitory promises. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, do not
bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth;
yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which
are called moral.”-Ibid., p. 816.
The Anglican Catechism, AD. 1549 and 1662

(Church of England, and Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America)
“The Catechism of the Church of England, and of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States of America, is found in all editions of ‘The Book of Common Prayer,’ between the baptismal service
and the order of confirmation.” - Volume 3, p. 517. The American edition contains a few minor changes.
Such changes as occur in the section quoted below are indicated in parentheses.
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“Question.-You said that your godfathers and godmothers (sponsors) did promise for you that you
should keep God’s commandments. Tell me how many there be.
“Answer-Ten.
“Ques.-Which be (are) they?
“Ans.-The same which God spoke in the twentieth chapter of Exodus. [Then follows the recital of
the Ten Commandments.]
“Ques.-What does thou chiefly learn by these Commandments.
“Ans.-I learn two things: my duty towards God, and my duty towards my neighbor. [Then follow
two questions, one concerning the duty to God, and the other, the duty to our neighbor.]
“Catechist.-My good child, know this, that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to
walk in the commandments of God, and to serve Him, without His special grace; which thou must learn at
all times to call for by diligent prayer.”’-Ibid., pp. 518-520.
The Irish Articles of Religion, AD. 1615

‘Probably composed by the learned Archbishop James Ussher.... Adopted by the ... Irish Episcopal
Church.... Practically superseded by the Thirty-nine Articles. . . . Important as the connecting link between
the Thirty-nine Articles and the Westminster Confession, and as the chief source of the latter. “-Volume 3,
p. 526.
“84. Although the law given from God by Moses as touching ceremonies and rites be abolished,
and the civil precepts thereof be not of necessity to be received in any commonwealth, yet,
notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is freed from the obedience of the commandments which are
called moral.”-Ibid., p. 541.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, AD. 1647

Of the Westminster Assembly that drew up this confession, Schaff declares: “Whether we look at
the extent or ability of its labors, or its influence upon future generations, it stands first among Protestant
Councils.” - Volume 1, p. 728. The Westminster Assembly carried on its work during that period in English
history when the Puritans, who desired to reform more fully- the English church from any trace of Roman
Catholicism, were in the ascendancy. With minor variations, the Westminster Confession is considered
authoritative by Presbyterian bodies everywhere.
Particular attention is called to the texts of Scripture given as proofs of the statements in the
confession. Those texts most frequently used by the No-Law advocates, are here used in such connections
by the framers of this confession as to show the difference between moral and ceremonial laws, and the
perpetuity of the former, etc.
CHAPTER XIX - OF THE LAW OF GOD

‘T God gave Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity to
personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience; promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death
upon the breach of it; and endued him with power and ability to keep it.’[1]
“II. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was
delivered by God upon Mt. Sinai in Ten Commandments, and written in two tables; [2] the first four
commandments containing our duty toward God, and the other six our duty to man.’[3]
1. Genesis 1:26,27 with Genesis 2:17; Romans 2:14,15; 10:5; 5:12,19; Galatians 3:10,12; Eccl. 7:29; Job
28:28.
2. James 1:25, 2:8,10,12. Romans 13:8,9; Deut. 5:32; 10:4; Exodus 34:1, Romans 3:19.
3. Matthew 22:37-40, Exodus 20:3-18.
“III. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a
church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring
Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; [4] and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral
duties. [5] All of which ceremonial laws are now abrogated under the New Testament. [6]
“IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the
state of that people, not obliging any other, now, further than the general equity thereof may require. [7]
‘V. The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience
thereof; [8] and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of
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God the Creator who gave it. [9] Neither does Christ in the gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen
this obligation. [10]
“VI. Although true believers be not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or
condemned. [11] Yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life, informing them
of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly.” [12] Discovering also the
sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives. [13] So as, examining themselves thereby, they may come
to further conviction of humiliation for, and hatred against sin. [14] Together with a clearer sight of the
need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience. [15] It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to
restrain their corruption, in that it forbids sin; [16] and the threatening of it serve to show
4. Hebrews 9, 10:1; Galatians 4:1-3; Col. 2:17.

5. 1 Corinthians 5: 7; 2 Corinthians 6:17. Jude 23.
6. Col. 2:14,16,17; Dan. 9:27; Ephesians 2:15 16.
7. Exodus 21; 22:1-29; Genesis 49:10, 1 Pet. 2:13,14; Matthew 5:17, with verses 38, 39; 1 Corinthians 9:8-
10.
8. Romans 13:8-10; Ephesians 6:2; 1 John 2:3,4,7,8; Romans 3:31, 6:15
9. James. 2:10,11.
10. Matthew 5:17-19; James 2: 8; Romans 3:31
11. Romans 6:14; Galatians 2:16; 3:13; 4:4,5; Acts 13.39; Romans 8:1.
12. Romans 7:12, 22, 25; Psalm 119:4-6; 1 Corinthians 7:19; Galatians 5:14-16,18-23.
13. Romans 7:7, 3:20.
14. James 1:23-25; Romans 7:9,14,24.
15. Galatians 3:24; Romans 7:24,25; 8:3,4.
16. James 2:1l; Psalm 119:101,104,128.
what even their sins deserve, and what afflictions in this life they may expect for them, although freed from
the curse thereof threatened in the law. [17] The promises of it, in like manner, show them God’s
approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof; [18] although
not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. [19] So as a man’s doing good, and refraining from
evil, because the law encourages to the One, and deters from the other, is no evidence of his being under
the law, and not under grace.” [20]
VIL Neither are the fore mentioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do
sweetly comply with it”. [21] The Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely
and cheerfully which the will of God, revealed in the law, requires to be done.” [22]
CHAPTER XX-OF CHRISTIAN LIBERTY, AND LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE

“1. The liberty which Christ bath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their
freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law.” [23] . . . All
which were common also to believers under the law. [24] But under the New Testament the liberty of
Christians is further enlarged in their freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish
Church was subjected.” [25] “-Volume 3, pp. 640-644.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism, AD. 1647

“This catechism was prepared by the Westminster Assembly in 1647, and adopted by the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 1648; by the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia, May,
1788; and by nearly all the Calvinistic Presbyterian and Congregational Churches of the English tongue....
It is more extensively used
17. Ezra 9:13,14; Psalm 89:30.34.

18. Leviticus 26:1,10,14 with 2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 6:2,3; Psalm 37:11 with Matthew 5:5; Psalm
19:11.
19. Galatians 2:16; Luke 17:10.
20. Romans 1:14. 1 Peter 3:8-12 with Psalm 34:12-16; Hebrews 12:28,29
21. Galatians 3:21; Titus 2:11-14
22. Ezekiel 36:27; Hebrews 8:10, with Jeremiah 31:33.
23. Titus 2:14; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; Galatians 3:13.
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24. Galatians 3:9,14.

25. Galatians 4:1-3,6,7; 5:1; Acts 15:10,11.
than any other Protestant catechism except perhaps the Small Catechism of Luther and the Heidelberg
Catechism.”-Ibid., p. 676.
“Question 14-What is sin?
“Answer-Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”
“Ques. 39-What is the duty which God requires of man?
“Ans.-The duty which God requires of man is obedience to His revealed will.
“Ques. 40-What did God at first reveal to man for the rule of his obedience?
“Ans.-The rule which God at first revealed to man for his Obedience, was the moral law.
“Ques. 41-Wherein is the moral law summarily comprehended?
“Ans.-The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments.
“Ques. 42-What is the sum of the Ten Commandments?
“Ans-The sum of the Ten Commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul,
with all our strength, and with all our mind; and our neighbor as ourselves.
“Ques. 43-What is the preface to the Ten Commandments?
“Ans-The preface to the Ten Commandments is in these words: ‘I am the Lord thy God, which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’
“Ques. 44-What cloth the preface to the Ten Commandments teach us?
“Ans.-The preface to the Ten Commandments teaches us, that because God is the Lord, and our God and
Redeemer, therefore we are bound to keep all His commandments.”
[Then follows a series of questions and answers explaining in order each of the Ten Commandments.]-
Ibid., pp. 678, 684, 685.
The Savoy Declaration of the Congregational Church, AD. 1658

Concerning the “general creeds or declarations of faith which have been approved by the
Congregational Churches in England and America,” Schaff declares: “They agree substantially with the
Westminster Confession, or the Calvinistic system of doctrine, but differ from Presbyterianism by rejecting
the legislative and judicial authority of presbyteries and synods, and by maintaining the independence of
the local churches ... .. The American Congregationalists have from time to time adopted the Westminster
standards of doctrine [the Westminster Confession of Faith], with the exception of the sections relating to
synodical church government.”
“The first and fundamental Congregational confession of faith and platform of polity is the Savoy
Declaration, so called from the place where it was composed and adopted [Savoy, in the Strand, London].”
-Volume 1, pp. 829, 835. “The Savoy Declaration is merely a modification of the Westminster Confession
to suit the Congregational polity.” Volume 3, p. 718. Schaff indicates “the principal omissions, additions,
and changes.” No change is noted in Chapter XIX, “Of the Law of God,” or in Section 1 of Chapter XX,
“Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience,” of the Westminster Confession.
The Confession of the Society of Friends, Commonly Called Quakers, AD. 1675
“The most authoritative summary of the principles and doctrines of the Religious Society of
Friends. “-Ibid., p. 789.
THE EIGHTH PROPOSITION

“Concerning Perfection
“In whom this holy and pure birth is fully brought forth [the “spiritual birth,” as discussed in the
seventh proposition] the body of death and sin comes to be crucified and removed, and their hearts united
and subjected unto the truth, so as not to obey any suggestion or temptation of the evil one, but to be free
from actual sinning and transgressing of the law of God, and in that respect perfect. Yet does this perfection
still admit of a growth; and there remains a possibility of sinning where the mind cloth not most diligently
and watchfully attend unto the Lord.”-Ibid., pp. 794, 795.
The Baptist Confession of 1688

(The Philadelphia Confession)
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“This is the most generally accepted confession of the Regular or Calvinistic Baptists in England
and in the Southern States of America. It appeared first in London, 1677.... It was adopted early in the
eighteenth century by the Philadelphia Association of Baptist Churches, and is hence called also the
Philadelphia Confession of Faith.
“It is a slight modification of the Confession of the Westminster Assembly (1647) and the Savoy
Declaration (1658), with changes to suit the Baptist views on church polity and on the subjects and mode of
baptism.”-Ibid., p. 738. Schaff notes the specific changes made in certain chapters of the Westminster
Confession. No change is noted in Chapter XIX, “Of the Law of God,” or of Section I of Chapter XX, “Of
Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience.”
The New Hampshire Baptist Confession, AD. 1833

“Widely accepted by the Baptists, especially in the Northern and Western States. . . . The text is
taken from the ‘Baptist Church Manual,’ published by the American Baptist Publication Society,
Philadelphia.’ - Ibid., p. 742.
XIL - OF THE HARMONY OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL

“We believe that the law of God is the eternal and unchangeable rule of His moral government. [1]
That it is holy, just, and good. [2] And that the inability which the Scriptures ascribe to fallen men to fulfill
its precepts arises entirely from their love of sin. [3] To deliver them from which, and to restore them
through a Mediator to unfeigned obedience to the holy law, is one great end of the gospel, and of the means
of grace connected with the establishment of the visible church. [4] “-Ibid., p. 746.
The Methodist Articles of Religion, AD. 1784

“The Twenty-five Articles of Religion were drawn up by john Wesley for the American
Methodists, and adopted at a Conference in 1784. They underwent some changes, chiefly verbal.... They
are a liberal and judicious abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.... The text is
taken from the official manual of The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ed. by
Bishop Harris, New York, 1872.”-Ibid., p. 807. All the important branches of Methodism contain in their
creeds the following from these Articles of Religion:
1. Romans 3:31; Matthew 5:17. Luke 16.17. Rom 3.20; 4:15.

2. Romans 7:12,14, 22; Gal 3:2l; Psalm 119.
3. Rom 8:7,8. Josh 24:19; Jeremiah 13:23; John 6:44, 5:44
4. Romans 8:2,4; 10:4; 1 Tim. 1:5; Hebrews 8:10; Jude 1:20,21; Hebrews 12:14; Matthew 16:17, 18; 1
Corinthians 12:28.
VI-OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being
both God and man. Wherefore they are not to be heard who feign that the old fathers did look only for
transitory promises. Although the law given from God by Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, does
not bind Christians, nor ought the civil precepts thereof of necessity be received in any commonwealth, yet,
notwithstanding, no Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are
called moral.” - Ibid., p. 808.
The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox, Catholic, Eastern Church, AD. 1839
“The most authoritative doctrinal standard of the orthodox Graeco-Russian Church.” Volume 2, p. 445.
“ON THE LAW OF GOD AND THE COMMANDMENTS

‘485. What means have we to know good works from bad?
“The inward law of God, or the witness of our conscience, and the outward law of God, or God’s
commandments.
‘486. Does Holy Scripture speak of the inward law of God?
“The apostle Paul says of the heathen: ‘Which show the work of the law written in their hearts,
their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing
one another.’ Romans 2:15.
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‘487. If there is in man’s heart an inward law, why was the outward given?
“It was given because men obeyed not the inward law, but led carnal and sinful lives, and stifled
within themselves the voice of the spiritual law, so that it was necessary to put them, in mind of it
outwardly through the commandments. ‘Wherefore then serves the law? It was added because of
transgressions.’ Galatians 3: 19.
‘488. When and how was God’s outward law given to men?
“When the Hebrew people, descended from Abraham, had been miraculously delivered from
bondage in Egypt, on their way to the Promised Land, in the desert, on Mt. Sinai, God manifested
His presence in fire and clouds, and gave them the law, by the hand of Moses, their leader.”
‘490. You said that these commandments were given to the people of Israel: must we, then, also walk by
them?
“We must; for they are in substance the same law which, in the words of St. Paul, has been
‘written in the hearts’ of all men, that all should walk by it.
“491. Did Jesus Christ teach men to walk by the Ten Commandments?
“He bade men, if they would attain to everlasting life, to ‘keep the commandments;’ and taught us
to understand and fulfill them more perfectly than had been done before He came. Matthew 19:17;
and 5.”-lbid., pp. 521, 522.
Questions No. 492 to 608 deal in detail with each of the ten commands.
D. L. Moody on the Ten Commandments

In addition to these quotations from the great Protestant creeds and confessions, it is pertinent to
quote also from the writings of the evangelist D. L. Moody. He was the founder of the Moody Bible
Institute, which has been followed by the creation of Bible institutes in various parts of the country. These
Bible institutes today are probably the most pronounced in their declarations against the law of God, and in
their denunciation of those who teach that the law has any place in the life of the saved man. The
statements from D. L. Moody speak for themselves.
The book from which the following quotations are taken is entitled Weighed and Wanting,
Addresses on the Ten Commandments, by D. L. Moody, published by Fleming H. Revell Company,
Chicago, copyrighted 1898 by The Bible Institute Colportage Association. The frontispiece consists of a
reproduction of the Ten Commandments as given in Exodus 20:3-17. There are twelve chapters, an
introductory chapter entitled “Weighed in the Balances,” then a chapter on each of the Ten
Commandments, and a closing chapter entitled “The Handwriting Blotted Out.” The first quotation is from
the chapter entitled “Weighed in the Balances.”
“It is a favorite thing with infidels to set their own standard, to measure themselves by other
people. But that will not do in the day of judgment. Now we will use God’s law as a balance weight....
“Let me call your attention to the fact that God wrote on the tables of stone at Sinai as well as on
the wall of Belshazzar’s palace....
“The law that was given at Sinai has lost none of its solemnity. Time cannot wear out its authority
or the fact of its authorship.
“I can imagine some one saying, ‘I won’t be weighed by that law. I don’t believe in it.’
“Now men may cavil as much as they like about other parts of the Bible, but 1 have never met an
honest man that found fault with the Ten Commandments....
“Now the question for you and me is, Are we keeping these commandments? Have we fulfilled all
the requirements of the law? If God made us, as we know He did, He had a right to make that law; and if
we don’t use it aright, it would have been better for us if we had never had it, for it will condemn us. We
shall be found wanting. The law is all right, but are we right? ...
“Some people seem to think we have got beyond the commandments. What did Christ say? ‘Think
not that I am come to destroy the law, and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verify I
say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be
fulfilled.’ The commandments of God given to Moses in the mount at Horeb are as binding today as ever
they have been since the time when they were proclaimed in the hearing of the people. The Jews said the
law was not given in Palestine (which belonged to Israel), but in the wilderness, because the law was for all
nations.
“Jesus never condemned the law and the prophets, but He did condemn those who did not obey
them. Because He gave new commandments, it does not follow that He abolished the old. Christ’s
explanation of them made them all the more searching. .
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“The people must be made to understand that the Ten Commandments are still binding, and that
there is a penalty attached to their violation. We do not want a gospel of mere sentiment. The sermon on the
mount did not blot out the Ten Commandments....
‘Paul said: ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law.’ But does this mean that the detailed precepts of the
decalogue are superseded, and have become back numbers? Does a father cease to give children rules to
obey because they love hint? Does a nation burn its statute books because the people have become
patriotic? Not at all. And yet people speak as if the commandments do not hold for Christians because they
have come to love God. Paul said: ‘Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we
establish the law.’ It still holds good. The commandments are necessary. So long as we obey, they do not
rest heavy upon us; but as soon as we try to break away, we find they are like fences to keep us within
bounds. Horses need bridles even after they have been properly broken in....
“Now my friend, are you ready to be weighed by this law of God? A great many people say that if
they keep the commandments, they do not need to be forgiven and saved through Christ. But have you kept
them? 1 will admit that if you perfectly keep the commandments, you do not need to be saved by Christ;
but is there a man in the wide world who can truly say that he has done this? Young lady, can you say: ‘I
am ready to be weighed by the law’? Can you, young man? Will you step into the scales and be weighed
one by one by the ten commandments?
“Now face these Ten Commandments honestly and prayerfully. See if your life is right, and if you
are treating God fairly. God’s statutes are just, are they not? If they are right, let us see if we are right. Let
us pray that the Holy Ghost may search each one of us. Let us get alone with God and read His law-read it
carefully and prayerfully, and ask Him to show us our sins and what He would have us to do.” Pages 10-17.
The next quotation is from the chapter entitled “The Fourth Commandment.”
“I honestly believe that this commandment is just as binding today as it ever was. I have talked with men
who have said that it has been abrogated, but they have never been able to point to any place in the Bible
where God repealed it. When Christ was on earth, He did nothing to set it aside; He freed it from the traces
under which the scribes and Pharisees had put it, and gave it its true place. ‘The Sabbath was made for man,
not man for the Sabbath.’ It is just as practicable and as necessary for men today as it ever was-in fact,
more than ever, because we live in such an intense age.
“The Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since. The fourth commandment
begins with the word ‘remember,’ showing that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote this law on
the tables of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been done away with,
when they will admit that the other nine are still binding? .
“Once when I was holding meetings in London, in my ignorance I made arrangements to preach
four times in different places one Sabbath. After 1 had made the appointments, I found I had to walk
sixteen miles; but I walked it, and I slept that night with a clear conscience. I have made it a rule never to
use the cars, and if I have a private carriage, I insist that horse and man shall rest on Monday. I want no
horse hand to rise up in judgment against me.
“My friends, if we want to help the Sabbath, let business men and Christians never patronize cars
on the Sabbath. I would hate to own stock in those companies, to be the means of taking the Sabbath from
these men, and have to answer for it at the day of judgment. Let those who are Christians at any rate
endeavor to keep a conscience void of offense on this point.” - Pages 46-50.
The next quotation is from the closing chapter, entitled “The Handwriting Blotted Out.”
“We have now considered the Ten Commandments, and the question for each one of us is, Are we keeping
them? If God should weigh us by them, would we be found wanting or not wanting? Do we keep the law,
the whole law? Are we obeying God with all our heart? Do we render Him a full and willing obedience?
“These Ten Commandments are not ten different laws; they are one law. If I am being held up in
the air by a chain with ten links and I break one of them, down I come, just as surely as if 1 break the whole
ten. If I am forbidden to go out of an enclosure, it makes no difference at what point I break through the
fence. ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ ‘The golden
chain of obedience is broken if one link is missing.’ . . .
“For fifteen hundred years man was under the law, and no one was equal to it. Christ came and
showed that the commandments went beyond the mere letter; and can any one since say that he has been
able to keep them in his own strength? . . .
“I can imagine that you are saying to yourself, ‘If we are to be judged by these laws, how are we
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going to be saved? Nearly every one of them has been broken by us, in spirit, if not in letter.’ I almost hear
you say: ‘I wonder if Mr. Moody is ready to he weighed. Would he like to put those tests to himself?’
“With all humility 1 reply that if God commanded me to step into the scales now, I am ready.
“‘What!’ you say, ‘haven’t you broken the law?’
“Yes, I have. 1 was a sinner before God the same as you; but forty years ago I pleaded guilty at His bar. I
cried for mercy, and He forgave me. If I step into the scales, the Son of God has promised to be with me. I
would not dare to step in without Him. If I did, how quickly the scales would fly up!
“Christ kept the law. If He had ever broken it, He would have had to die for Himself; but because
He was a Lamb without spot or blemish, His atoning death is efficacious for you and me. He had no sin of
His own to atone for, and so God accepted His sacrifice. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to
every one that believes. We are righteous in God’s sight because the righteousness of God which is by faith
in Jesus Christ is unto all and upon all them that believe....
“If the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, you will be able to fulfill the law.” - Pages 119-
124.
To all this Adventists respond fervently and without reservation: Amen, Brother Moody.
NOTE-For further testimony concerning the moral law, and the difference between it and the ceremonial
law, see the following chapter.
18. Sunday Sacredness in the Protestant Reformation

A KNOWLEDGE OF THE GROWTH of the doctrine of Sunday sacredness in the Reformation
movement will enable the reader to understand better the degree to which the Protestant Reformation
caused a reform in the doctrine of a divinely ordained weekly rest day. We may willingly grant that the
immediate successors of Luther moved upward a great distance from the laxity of the Dark Ages when they
endeavored to obey more fully the fourth commandment, even though their interpretation of it was to a
greater or less degree faulty.
The most interesting fact that stands out is that the doctrine of the sanctity of a weekly rest day
gained strength only as increasing emphasis was placed on the truth that the fourth commandment is
morally binding on Christians. Without this emphasis Protestantism would never have had stamped upon it
that measure of regard for a weekly holy day that has quite definitely distinguished Reformation churches
from the Catholic Church. When religious leaders today attack the binding claims of the fourth
commandment in their attempt to meet the Sabbath truth, they are attacking the foundation on which has
been reared whatever degree of sanctity Protestantism has attached to a weekly rest day.
It is said that the Reformers did not move on into the full light concerning the fourth
commandment; but what is to be said of their spiritual successors today who would attempt to abolish the
command? We are moving on in the true path of reformation when we give increasing emphasis to the
importance of the fourth commandment, and insist that this command be obeyed exactly as God gave it,
and not as changed during the centuries of apostasy. The following historical sketch is from Philip Schaff,
DD, LLD.
Philip Schaff on Sabbath Reform

“Chapter XXI. ‘Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day’ [of the Westminster Confession, AD
1647], must be mentioned as (next to the Irish Articles) the first symbolical endorsement of what may be
called the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath which was taught by the Reformers and the Continental
Confessions, but which has taken deep root in England, Scotland, and the United States, and has become
the basis of a far stricter observance of the Lord’s day than exists in any other country. This observance is
one of the most prominent national and social features of Anglo-American Christianity, and at once strikes
the attention of every traveler.
“The way was gradually prepared for it. Calvin’s view of the authority of the fourth
commandment was stricter than Luther’s, Knox’s view stricter than Calvin’s, and the Puritan view stricter
than Knox’s. The Prayer Book of the Church of England, by incorporating the responsive reading of the
decalogue in the regular service, kept alive in the minds of the people the perpetual obligation of the fourth
commandment, and helped to create a public sentiment within the Church of England favorable to the
Puritan theory, although practically great desecration prevailed during Elizabeth’s reign. The ‘judicious’
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Hooker, who was no Puritan, says. ‘We are bound to account the sanctification of one day in seven a duty
which God’s immutable law does exact forever.’
“Towards the close of Elizabeth’s reign the Sabbath question assumed the importance and dignity
of a national movement, and of a practical reformation which traveled from England to Scotland and from
both countries to North America. The chief impulse of this movement was given in 1595 by Dr. Nicholas
Bowen (or Bound), a learned Puritan clergyman of Norton in Suffolk. He is not the originator, but the
systematizer or first clear expounder, of the Puritan theory of the Christian Sabbath, namely, that the
Sabbath or weekly day of holy rest is a primitive institution of the benevolent Creator for the benefit of
man, and that the fourth commandment as to its substance (that is, the keeping holy one day out of seven) is
as perpetual in design and as binding upon the Christians as any other of the ten commandments, of which
Christ said that not lone jot or one tittle’ shall pass away till all be fulfilled.
“The work in which this theory was ably and earnestly vindicated proved to he a tract for the
times. Heylin, a High Church opponent, says ‘that in a very little time it grew the most bewitching error,
the most popular deceit that had ever been set on foot in the Church of England.’ Fuller dates from it ‘the
more solemn and strict observance of the Lord’s day.’ . . .
“The Puritan Sabbath theory was denounced and assailed by the rising school of High Churchism
as a Sabbatarian heresy and a cunningly concealed attack on the authority of the Church of England, by
substituting the Jewish Sabbath for the Christian Sunday and all the church festivals. Attempts were made
by Archbishop Whitgift in 1599, and by Chief justice Popham in 1600, to suppress Bowen’s book and to
destroy all the copies, but ‘the more it was called in, the more it was called on.’ Its price was doubled, and
‘though the book’s wings were clipped from flying abroad in print, it ran the faster from friend to friend in
transcribed copies, and the Lord’s day, in most places, was most strictly observed. The more liberty people
were offered, the less they used it. It was sport for them to refrain from sports.... Scarce any comment,
catechism, or controversy was set forth by the stricter divines, wherein this doctrine (the diamond in this
ring) was not largely pressed and proved; so that, as one said, the Sabbath itself had no rest.’
“At last King James I brought his royal authority to bear against the Puritan Sabbatarianism so
called, and issued the famous ‘Book of Sports,’ May 24, 1618, which was afterwards republished, with an
additional order, by his son, Charles 1, no doubt by advice of Archbishop Laud, October 18, 1633. This
curious production formally authorizes and commends the desecration of the evening of the Lord’s day by
dancing, leaping, fencing, and other ‘lawful recreations,’ on condition of observing the earlier part by strict
outward conformity to the worship of the Church of England. The professed object of this indulgence to the
common people was to check the progress of the Papists and Puritans (or Trecisians’), and to make ‘the
bodies more able for war when his majesty should have occasion to use them.’ The court set the example of
desecration by balls, masquerades, and plays on Sunday evening; and the rustics repaired from the house of
worship to the alehouse or the village green to dance around the Maypole and to shoot at butts. To complete
the folly, King James ordered the book to be read to every parish church, and threatened clergymen who
refused to do so with severe punishment. King Charles repeated the order. But in both cases it became the
source of great trouble and confusion. Several bishops disapproved of it. Archbishop Abbott (the Puritan
predecessor of Laud) flatly forbade it to be read at Croydon. The Lord Mayor of London commanded the
king’s own carriages to be stopped as they were passing through the city on a Sunday. James raged and
swore, and countermanded the prohibition. The Lord Mayor yielded, with this answer: ‘While 1 was in my
power 1 did my duty; but that being taken away, it is my duty to obey.’ Some clergymen, after reading the
book from the pulpit, followed it up by a sermon against it, or by reading the fourth commandment,
‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,’ and added, ‘This is the law of God, the other the injunction of
man.’ Those who refused to read the royal ‘Book of Sports’ were suspended from office and benefice, or
even excommunicated by Laud and his sympathizing fellow bishops. Many left England, and joined ‘The
pilgrim bands, who crossed the sea to keep Their Sabbaths in the eye of God alone, In His wide temple of
the wilderness.’
“This persecution of conscientious ministers for obeying God rather than men gave moral strength
to the cause of Sabbath observance, and rooted it deeper in the affections of the people. It was one of the
potent causes which overwhelmed Charles and Laud in common ruin. The sober and serious part of the
nation were struck with a kind of horror that they should be invited by the highest authorities in church and
state to destroy the effect of public worship by a desecration of a portion of the day consecrated to religion.
“On the Sunday question Puritanism achieved at last a permanent triumph, and left its trace upon
the Church of England and Scotland, which reappeared after the licentious period of the Restoration. For,
although the Church of England, as a body, never committed itself to the Puritan Sabbath theory, it adopted
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at least the practice of a much stricter observance than had previously obtained under Elizabeth and the
Stuarts, and would never exchange it for the Continental laxity, with its disastrous effects upon the
attendance of public worship and the morals of the people.
“The Westminster Confession, without entering into details or sanctioning the incidental excesses
of the Puritan practice, represents the Christian rest day under its threefold aspect. (1) As a divine law of
nature (ins divinum naturale), rooted in the constitution of man, and hence instituted (together with
marriage) at the creation, in the state of innocence, for the perpetual benefit of body and soul. (2) As a
positive moral law (jus divinum positivum), given through Moses, with reference to the primitive
institution (‘Remember’) and to the typical redemption of Israel from bondage. (3) As the cornmemoration
of the new creation and finished redemption by the resurrection of Christ; hence the change from the last to
the first day of the week, and its designation the Lord’s day’ (dies Dominica).
And it requires the day to be wholly devoted to the exercises of public and private worship and the duties of
necessity and mercy.
“To this doctrine and practice the Presbyterian, Congregational, and other churches in Scotland,
England, and America have faithfully adhered to this day. Yea, twenty-seven years before it was
formulated by the learned divines of Westminster, the Pilgrim Fathers of America had transplanted both
theory and practice, first to Holland, and, finding them unsafe there, to the wild soil of New England. Two
days after their landing from the ‘Mayflower’ (December 212, 1620), forgetting the pressing necessities of
physical food and shelter, the dreary cold of winter, the danger threatening from wild beasts and roaming
savages, they celebrated their first Sunday in America.”-The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 1, pp. 776-782
(4th edition in 3 volumes, Harper & Brothers).
Sixteenth Century Reformers’ Sabbath Views

The attitude of the sixteenth century Reformers toward the Sabbath is well illustrated by
quotations from two of the most authoritative confessions of that century-the Augsburg Confession, AD
1530; and the Second Helvetic Confession, AD 1566:
Augsburg Confession, AD 1530
PART II, ARTICLE VIL-OF ECCLESIASTICAL POWER

“The Scripture, which teacheth that all the Mosaical ceremonies can be omitted after the gospel is
revealed, has abrogated the Sabbath. And yet, because it was requisite to appoint a certain day, that the
people might know when they ought to come together, it appears that the [Christian] [Christian is placed in
brackets, Schaff explains, to indicate that the word is not in the original Latin text of the Confession,
though it is in the German text.] Church did for that purpose appoint the Lord’s day: which for this cause
also seemed to have been pleasing, that man might have an example of Christian liberty, and might know
that the observation, neither of the Sabbath nor of another day, was of necessity.”-Ibid., volume 3, page 69.
Second Heivetic Confession, AD 1566
“CHAPTER XXIV-OF HOLIDAYS, FASTS, AND CHOICE OF MEATS

“Although religion be not tied unto time, yet can it not be planted and exercised without a due
dividing and allotting out of time. Every church, therefore, does choose unto itself a certain time for public
prayers, and for the preaching of the gospel, and for the celebration of the sacraments; and it is not lawful
for any one to overthrow this appointment of the church at his own pleasure. For except some due time and
leisure were allotted to the outward exercise of religion, without doubt men would be quite drawn from it
by their own affairs.
“In regard hereof, we see that in the ancient churches there were not only certain set hours in the
week appointed for meetings, but that also the Lord’s clay itself, ever since the apostles’ time, was
consecrated to religious exercises and to a holy rest; which also is now very well observed by our churches,
for the worship of God and the increase of charity. Yet herein we give no place unto the Jewish observation
of the day, or to any superstitions. For we do not account one day to be holier than another, nor think that
mere rest is of itself acceptable to God. Besides, we do celebrate and keep the Lord’s day, and not the
Jewish Sabbath, and that with a free observation.”-Ibid., p. 899.
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Later Views Regarding the Sabbath Command

The doctrine of the Sabbath as set forth in the Irish Articles of Religion and in the Westminster
Confession, to which Schaff refers in the preceding historical sketch is revealed in the following quotations
from these creeds:
Irish Articles of Religion, AD 1615

PARAGRAPHS 46-56-OF THE SERVICE OF GOD
“56. The first day of the week, which is the Lord’s day, is wholly to be dedicated unto the service
of God; and therefore we are bound therein to rest from our common and daily business, and to bestow that
leisure upon holy exercises, both public and private.” -Ibid., p. 536.
Westminster Confession, AD 1647
CHAPTER XXI-OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP AND THE SABBATH DAY

“VII. As it is of the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the
worship of God; so in His word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all
ages, He hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto Him. [1] Which,
from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week. And, from the
resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, [2] which in Scripture is called the Lord’s
day, [3] and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath. [4] ” - Ibid., pp. 648, 649.
Schaff’s Comment on the Augsburg Confession Sabbath Doctrine

The foregoing statements from Protestant creeds reveals clearly what Schaff means when he
speaks of the changing views of Protestantism toward the authority of the fourth commandment. In a
footnote in comment on the Sabbath doctrine statement (Article VII) in the Augsburg Confession, Schaff
remarks:
“This view of the Christian Sabbath, which was held by all the Reformers, and still prevails on the
Continent of Europe, overlooks the important fact that the Sabbath has a moral as well as a ceremonial [?]
aspect, and is a part of the decalogue, which the Lord did not come ‘to destroy, but to fulfill’ (Matthew
5:17, 18; comp. 22:37-40; Romans 3:31; 10:4). As a periodical day of rest for the body, and worship for the
soul, the Sabbath is founded in the physical and moral constitution of man, and reflects the rest of God after
the work of creation (Genesis 2:3). Under this view it is of primitive origin, like the institution of marriage,
and of perpetual obligation, like the other commandments of the decalogue. A lax theory of the Sabbath
naturally leads to a lax practice, and tends to destroy
1. Exodus 20:8,10,11; Isaiah 56:2,4,6,7 [Am. ed. Isaiah 56:61.

2. Genesis 2:2,3; 1 Corinthians 16:1,2; Acts 20:7.
3. Revelation 1:10.
4. Exodus 20:8-10, with Matthew 5:17,18.
the blessing of this holy day. The Anglo-American churches have an unspeakable advantage over those of
the Continent of Europe in their higher theory and practice of Sabbath observance, which dates from the
close of the sixteenth century. Even Puritan rigor is better than the opposite extreme.”-Ibid., p. 69, footnote.
In our day in the United States that active force for Sunday sacredness, the Lord’s Day Alliance,
rests its conviction as to the importance of a weekly holy day on the ground that the fourth commandment
is still in force, as the following quotation reveals:
The Lord’s Day Alliance on the Sabbath Doctrine

“The Alliance holds that the fourth commandment is still in full force and effect. It believes that
the Sabbath was given, not merely for one nation, but for all people, and that the world needs it today more
than ever, both as a day of rest from excessive activity and as a day for religious inspiration in an age of
worldliness and doubt. It holds that Christ did not abolish the fourth commandment, as some have held, but
rather that in freeing the Sabbath from narrow and technical interpretations He strengthened and
spiritualized the holy day. He said He came not to destroy, but to fulfill the law.
“The change of the observance of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day of the week did not
end an old institution or begin a new one, but added new life and significance to the divine command. Thus
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not only was the day of the resurrection of Jesus celebrated, but the Sabbath was cleansed from the
technicalities and traditions by which its free sanctities had been obscured. “-Supplement to the January-
February, 1921, Lord’s Day Leader, official publication of the Lord’s Day Alliance.
The Proposition Narrowed Down

Thus in English-speaking countries when the Sabbath is discussed with those who subscribe to this
generally accepted view
of a fourth-commandment basis for Sunday, the proposition is narrowed down to this simple question:
Where is the Bible text to prove that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh to the first day of the
week?
When we deal with those who hold to the so-called Continental view of the Sabbath, as set forth in
the Augsburg Confession, etc., the question is: Where is the Bible proof that the fourth commandment deals
with merely a ceremonial requirement, when the whole Ten Commandments is admittedly the binding
moral code for Christians?
In no case should it be logically necessary to meet a thousand and one quibbles about grace and
the abolition of the law before coming to the central question of the Sabbath. The evidence from the
Protestant creeds reveals beyond all controversy that a man repudiates one of the most basic beliefs of
Protestantism when he discards the Ten Commandments.
19. Were the Annual Sabbaths Ten Commandments Sabbaths?

About the year 1900 a Methodist minister, Samuel Waiter Gamble, wrote a book, Sunday, the
True Sabbath of God, in which he brought forth a series of astounding claims regarding the nature of the
ancient Jewish calendar. On these claims he built an argument against the seventh day Sabbath and for
Sunday. The book was brought forth admittedly as an attack on Seventh day Adventists and their Sabbath
preaching. We might perhaps dispose of the book with the brief observation that though it was produced for
the express purpose of providing Sunday keepers with a new and invincible argument against Sabbatarians,
and though the writer of the introduction declared, "It is this or nothing," Gamble's book failed to win
scholarly support. Sunday keeping theologians ridiculed unsparingly some of the key claims of the book.
However, three reasons prompt me to examine the theory:
1. Though the Gamble book died quietly, with scarcely an obituary notice from the theologians
whom it was intended to aid, the shadowy apparition of the theory is invoked quite frequently by the
opponents of the Sabbath.
A choice illustration of how the ghost of the Gamble theory enters into important present-day
Sabbath discussions, is found in the following quotation from the Lord's Day Leader, official organ of the
Lord's Day Alliance:
"Nowhere did God designate the seventh day of the week [as the Sabbath]. It could not have been
appointed for the seventh day of tile week without interfering with the law of the Passover. The Passover
was a movable feast. It was appointed to be held on the fourteenth day of the month of Abib, or Nisan. It
was therefore a calendar date, and not a weekly day. This was the first great Sabbath of the year, and the
other Sabbaths followed every seventh day. Now everybody knows that a calendar date, such as a birthday
or Fourth of July, cannot fall on the same day of the week two years in succession.
"Now let us be reasonable about this matter, and admit, as all intelligent Jewish rabbis do, that the
ancient Sabbaths fell on the seventh day after the Passover, and not on the seventh day of the week, and that
in the course of seven years each day of the week was in turn the Sabbath for a whole year. This was the
law as long as the Jewish nation lasted." -September-October, 1928.
Of course Sunday law reformers, of all people, find comfort in such a theory as Gamble's, because
it enables them to invoke the Sabbath command in favor of Sunday; for is not Sunday a seventh day after
six days of work?
2. Two leaders in the recent calendar-revision movement, Moses B. Cotsworth and C. F. Marvin,
resurrected the Gamble theory, touched it up here and there, and sent it forth again with such publicity as
they were able to command. (Of its relation to calendar revision 1 am not here concerned, of course.)
3. While the mere refuting of a fanciful theory may be rather profitless, though necessary, the
discussion of this particular theory furnishes an excellent opportunity to set forth much positive evidence
and truth regarding the Jewish annual Sabbaths and the difference between them and the weekly Sabbath.
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I shall not attempt to go into all the details of the theory, but confine myself to the primary claims
on which it rests. If these collapse, they carry down with them the secondary claims.* I shall deal with the
theory in terms of its revived form as given out by Cotsworth and Marvin in a thirty-two-page pamphlet
entitled Moses the Greatest of Calendar Reformers, published by the International Fixed Calendar League.
However, so far as the main arguments are concerned there is no difference between the original and the
revived form. On the following page is a reproduction of the calendar which, according to this theory, was
given to the Jews by Moses at the time of the Exodus. The claims made regarding it are as follows:
Four Clams for Alleged Mosaic Calendar

1. Moses, at the time of the Exodus, established a solar calendar of 365 days. This calendar
consisted of twelve thirty-day months, plus five extra days, three of which extra days were inserted at the
end of the sixth month (Elul), and two it the end of the twelfth (Adar). These five extra days, though
reckoned as days of the week, were not counted as days of the month.
* I wish to acknowledge my great indebtedness to the late Dr. Moses Hyarmon LLD who at the time I
interviewed him, was professor of codes at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. Rabbi
Hyarnson gave to me more than a whole day of his valuable time in explanation of the various customs of
ancient Israelites and in elucidation of Scriptural passages theory. He was regarded not only by his
orthodox associates but also by reformed rabbis as one of the most learned of Hebrew scholars.
2. The "seventh day- of the fourth commandment was not the "seventh day" of the week as we
understand it today, but simply the seventh day after six days of labor. Therefore, to speak of the days of
the Mosaic calendar as Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, et cetera, is not accurate. The specifically mentioned
Sabbath days in the Jewish ritual, such as Passover Sabbath, give the key, and the remainder of the
Sabbaths in the year are located in the calendar by spacing out six working days before each of them.
3. The fifth day of the third month (Sivan), though reckoned as a day of the month, was not
counted as a day of the week. This was the day of Pentecost. It was an "extra Sabbath," similar to the
"blank day" of the present proposed calendar. In other words, although the fourth of Sivan was Sabbath, the
fifth was not "Sunday," but simply a continuation of the Sabbath of the fourth-a blank day so far as the
reckoning of the days of the week is concerned.
4. Now, 365 days equal fifty-two weeks plus one day. But this extra day being eliminated from the
count of the weeks, made the year really consist of an exact number of weeks. This caused the Sabbaths
always to bear a fixed relation to the month, instead of being the seventh day of a free-running week. Thus
every year was an exact duplicate of every other year.
Examine First Link in Evidence

The authors, Cotsworth and Marvin, first endeavor to prove that the Mosaic calendar was solar.
This, of course, gave them their foundation for the statement that it consisted of 365 days. Most Jewish
authorities hold that their ancient calendar was not solar; but let us grant, for the sake of argument, that it
was. What does that prove? Nothing in particular. Our present calendar is solar, but that gives to it no
unusual perpetual qualities. However, the reader of the pamphlet is led to feel that when the solar nature of
the Mosaic calendar is established, the other features naturally follow. This feeling is strengthened by the
fact that Dr. Julian Morgenstern and Prof. W. A. Heidel (whose views on the solar nature of the ancient
Jewish calendar are mentioned in the main text of the pamphlet) are listed along with Samuel Walter
Gamble, the father of the whole theory, in a footnote entitled "Some Authorities We Quote." A letter was
therefore written to both these Hebrew scholars, informing them of the theory set forth in this pamphlet.
The letter stated:
"The writers of this pamphlet quote you as one of the authorities in support of the major premise
of their thesis, because of your contribution on the calendar of ancient Israel. Your name and the quotations
from your work, placed as they are in this pamphlet under the general head, 'Some Authorities We Quote,'
lead the general reader to the impression that your researches warrant the ultimate conclusions to which the
writers of the pamphlet come. I wish to inquire whether I would be correct in obtaining this impression. In
other words, have your researches led you to believe, as do the writers of this pamphlet, that Moses devised
a perpetual calendar that placed the Sabbath in a fixed relationship to the month, necessitating the existence
each year of an extra Sabbath?'
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Hebrew Scholars Reply

The essence of Dr. Heidel's brief reply is found in this one sentence from his letter: "Messrs.
Marvin and Cotsworth have quite absolutely misrepresented my views."
Dr. Morgenstern's reply is quoted in more detail:
"THE HEBREW UNION COLLEGE

"Cincinnati, Ohio
January 30, 1929. Office of the President.
"MY DEAR MR. NICHOL:

"Replying to yours of the 24th inst., I am very happy to be able to assure you that Messrs. Marvin
and Cotsworth have used my name in their propaganda for the new calendar entirely without my
authorization and knowledge, and that the quotations from my article on 'The Three Calendars of Ancient
Israel' apparently altogether misrepresent the facts with regard to the history of the calendar of ancient
Israel which 1 have been able to establish. . . .
"Certainly I did not advance the thesis 'that the ancient Jews lived under a fixed or perpetual
calendar devised by Moses, which caused the Sabbath always to recur on the same days of the month each
year, instead of being an institution related only to the week, as we now have it.' On the contrary, I showed
in this article that, at various times in the history of ancient Israel, different calendar systems were
employed. That up to approximately 621 BC the old Canaanitish calendar, a purely solar calendar, taking
cognizance of the days of the solar equinoxes, was employed in ancient Israel. Then from about 621 to a
time somewhat later than 400 BC, another calendar, apparently a lunar solar calendar, was employed, based
apparently largely upon some Babylonian model. It apparently took no cognizance whatever of the
Sabbath, which continued as a weekly institution, falling upon any date in the month, regardless of any
considerations other than that the Sabbath came every seventh day. At some time after 400 BC, the
calendar at present employed by the Jewish Church, also based upon Babylonian antecedents, was
instituted. This also makes no effort to co-ordinate the Sabbath with any particular days or dates in the
month.
"I showed likewise that at some time, probably in the third century BC, an attempt was made to
introduce into ancient Israel a calendar similar to that which Mr. Cotsworth is championing. With particular
attention given to the coincidence of the Sabbath with the year divided into thirteen months of twenty-eight
days, and with a particular date in each month, probably the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty
eighth days. This calendar is employed as the basis of reckoning in the books of jubilees and Enoch, two
pseudepigraphical writings which were never regarded as authoritative. This calendar, however, was never
recognized as official by Judaism and never came into actual use. Furthermore, Moses himself had no
connection whatsoever with any of these calendars. It is clear, therefore, that the above named gentlemen
have either not troubled to read my article carefully, or, if they did, have not understood it or have not
wanted to understand it. Certainly, the facts which they state and the conclusions which they drew from
them are altogether unwarranted by my article.
"I trust that this gives you the information which you desire. "Very sincerely yours,
"[Signed] JULIAN MORGFNSTERN,
"President."
Comment on this letter is superfluous. Let us therefore examine the next point.
The pamphlet authors declare that Moses inserted a leap week every twenty-eight years to serve
the same purpose as our quadrennial leap day. The only "proof' cited in behalf of this is that Moses was too
wise a statesman not to have done so, and that unless he had done so, "his wonderful calendar system"
would have collapsed. The only point certain is that the "wonderful calendar system" of the authors will
collapse without the leap-week feature. There is no proof in the world that Moses employed it.
Next Link Examined

The next link in the chain is the claim that Moses divided his calendar into twelve thirty-day
months, with five supplementary days that could be inserted between the months where needed. Unless he
did thus divide the months, the theory could not be made to work. In other words, unless he followed the
Egyptian division of months, the theory collapses. But again we are confronted with an assumption, for the
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authors simply assume that he did, and proceed to build a towering structure upon the groundless
assumption, which in turn, rests upon the equally groundless assumption that Moses employed a leap week.
We come now to the examination of a passage in Exodus 19 which is brought forth as evidence for
this alleged Mosaic calendar. The first text they quote, including the bracketed phrase, is: "In the third
month after the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day [that is, the third
day] came they into the wilderness of Sinai. . . . And there Israel encamped before the mount." Ex. 19:1,2,
A.R.V. The bracketed phrase in this verse is inserted by the calendar authors.
They then quote a portion of the tenth and eleventh verses, which reads as follows:
"Jehovah said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to-day and to-morrow, and let them wash
their garments, and be ready against the third day; for the third day Jehovah will come down in the sight of
all the people upon mount Sinai." Verse 10.
They are endeavoring by these texts to support their contention that Pentecost came on the fifth day of the
third month (Sivan), as their reconstructed calendar shows it. Their argument in brief is this:
1. That according to Jewish tradition the law was proclaimed from Mount Sinai on Pentecost; in other
words, that Pentecost is a memorial of that great event.
2. That the Israelites reached Mount Sinai on the third day of the third month.
3. That the three days mentioned in verses 10 and 11 of Exodus 19 should begin with the third day of the
month, thus causing the last of the three days of sanctification. The day when Jehovah came down and
delivered the law, in other words, Pentecost-to come on the fifth day of the third month, as their calendar
places it.
Let us now examine these three propositions. Even if it be granted that "the same day” means the third day
of the month, the conclusions of the authors do not necessarily follow. They must still prove that the words
of Jehovah to Moses to sanctify the people "to-day and tomorrow," as given in verses 10 and 11, were
uttered the very day that the Israelites reached Mount Sinai. Unless they can do this, their third proposition
collapses. But no proof can possibly be given for this claim, and every presumption is against it.
Questionable Methods in Chronology

If the whole passage from the first verse to the eleventh is read, it will be noted that after the
Israelites reached Sinai, Moses went up into the mount (verse 3), and communed for a time with God. How
long, we know not. Next, that he descended from the mount (verse 7), and told the people what God had
said to him. How much time this consumed, we know not. Next, that Moses reported to Jehovah what the
people had said (verse 8), and that following these communications the Lord made a statement concerning
the sanctifying of the people “against the third day." The Scriptures do not divulge how much time elapsed
in connection with these conversations, and it is only unwarranted assumption that would declare that the
whole passage must bear the date of the first verse, whatever that date may be.
If that sort of assumption is to be employed in determining the dates of events, we can quickly
bring the Gamble theory into hopeless straits by turning to the sixteenth chapter of Exodus. There we read
that the Israelites entered the wilderness of Sin on "the fifteenth day of the second month." Verse 1. The
next two verses immediately declare that they murmured, craving the flesh pots of Egypt. Then
immediately follows the statement of Jehovah (verse 4) that He "will rain bread from heaven," and that "it
shall come to pass on the sixth day, that they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as
much as they gather daily." Verse 5. Then Moses declares to the people that "in the morning" the people
will have "bread to the full." Verses 7, 8. Then follows the story of how "in the morning" (verse 13) the
people saw the manna lying on the ground, and gathered it up. Then, that "they gathered it morning by
morning" (verse 21) until the “sixth day" arrived, when Moses informed them, "To-morrow is a solemn
rest, a holy Sabbath unto Jehovah" (verse 23).
Chronology Turns Against Them

Now, if we are to date this whole passage in terms of the date given at the head of the narrative-
"the fifteenth of the second month-we would conclude that the Israelites murmured the very day they
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arrived in this wilderness. And that the phrase "in the morning" applied to the very next morning, namely,
the sixteenth. But if the sixteenth be the first of six days of gathering manna, then the sixth day, on which
they gathered twice as much, would come on the twenty-first and the Sabbath on the twenty second day of
that second month. A glance at the accompanying calendar will illustrate this clearly. But it will also reveal
that the authors have listed this twenty-second day in a "work day column." Thus according to the very rule
that they have followed in trying to establish their point in the nineteenth chapter, we can bring their
calendar into confusion by the incidents related in he sixteenth chapter.
Now, let it be made clear that we do not necessarily hold that on the morning immediately after the
fifteenth day of the second month, the manna began to fall. The contention is that it would be as logical to
maintain this as for the authors to maintain the position they take on the nineteenth chapter, and that by thus
employing this principle in both chapters. For a principle of chronological interpretation ought to be able to
work in more than one chapter-the theory is brought into confusion.
Phrase Wrongly Interpreted

But we do not grant that “the same day” means the third day of that third month. Jewish scholars
explain that in the Hebrew "the same day" is an indefinite phrase, and cannot properly be forced to refer
back to the "third month." Unbroken Jewish tradition has understood “the same day” to mean the first day
of that month.* Thus the Gamble theory advocates are in the peculiar position of accepting Jewish tradition
in order to establish the first of their three propositions, namely, that the law was proclaimed on Pentecost,
and rejecting Jewish tradition in order to establish the second point, namely, that the Israelites reached Sinai
on the third day of the month. This is really quite an unusual situation.
Christian commentators are generally in agreement with Jewish scholars in regard to this passage,
at least as regards the point that nothing definite can be understood by "the same day." One typical
quotation is given. Lange, in his critical commentary on the Old Testament, thus observes:
“The same day.” According to the Jewish tradition this means on the first day of the third month,
but grammatically it may be taken more indefinitely at this time.' "-A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures,
by John Peter Lange, translated by Philip Schaff, vol. 2, of the Old Testament, p. 69.
*Rabbi Hyamson offers the following comment:

'In the third month. The Hebrew word hodesh means also 'new moon.' Hence Exodus 19:1 might he
rendered 'on the third new moon [first day of the third month]. On this day they came to the wilderness
of Sinai.' For this rendering of hodeth compare 1 Samuel 20:18. 'And Jonathan said to David,
Tomorrow is new moon.' "
We come now to the main part of the Gamble theory, which may be summarized in four propositions:
1. The Sabbath command simply means six days of work followed by a seventh day of rest.
2. The annual Sabbaths are decalogue Sabbaths.
3. Counting "seven Sabbaths" from the Passover Sabbath on the fifteenth of the first month (Abib) brings
us to the fourth day of the third month (Sivan). But the "morrow after the seventh Sabbath," Sivan 5, being
Pentecost, which was also Sabbath, gives us an extra Sabbath, and this must be placed in the "Sabbath
column” in the calendar.
4. Now the command to work six days is just as mandatory as the command to rest on the seventh,
therefore the double Sabbath of the fourth and fifth of Sivan must be followed by six days of work before
the next Sabbath. This results in giving us a blank day so far as the week is concerned. And this, of course,
results in eliminating the one day over fifty-two full weeks in a 365day calendar year.
Propositions 1 and 2
Let us examine first, propositions 1 and 2. What does the Bible say concerning the nature of
Pentecost? We read, "There shall be a holy convocation unto you; you shall do no servile work." Lev.
23:21, A.R.V. It is because of this statement that the calendar authors place Pentecost in the "Sabbath
column" of their calendar, "since it could not by any rational procedure, be put in any one of the work-day
columns."
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With this as our guide as to which days should be placed in the "Sabbath column," let us now
consider some other scriptures. We read:
"In the first month [Abib], on the fourteenth day of the month at even, is Jehovah's Passover. And on the
fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto Jehovah: seven days you shall eat
unleavened bread. In the first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work." Verses
5-7.
Because of this the fifteenth of Abib is placed in the "Sabbath column.” But the next verse declares, "In the
seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall do no servile work." Identical language is employed to
describe the nature of the "first day" and the "seventh day" of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Now if the
fifteenth day is the "first day" of the feast, the twenty-first is the "seventh day” of it. And if the fifteenth
belongs in the "Sabbath column," then the twenty-first belongs there also. But the Gamble theory does not
place it there. Why? No explanation is given.
Day of Atonement Destroys Theory

Come now to the seventh month. On the strength of the command that the first, fifteenth, and
twenty-second days of the seventh month were to be holy convocations to the Lord, in which "no servile
work" was to be done, these three days are placed in the "Sabbath column." But the tenth day of that month,
the Day of Atonement-that day which was a "Sabbath of Sabbaths," to translate literally the original, on
which not only "servile work," but "any manner of work," was forbidden under penalty of death-is placed
in a "work-day column." Now if Pentecost, on which only "servile work" was prohibited, "could not, by
any rational procedure, be put in any one of the work-day columns,- no possible sophistry can justify
placing the Day of Atonement, the tenth day of the seventh month, in "any one of the workday columns."
The endeavor to avoid this irresistible conclusion serves only to reveal more clearly the desperate plight in
which this Atonement Day Sabbath places the Gamble theory. The calendar authors strive to show an
analogy between the choosing of the Passover lamb on the tenth of the first month and the Atonement Day
on the tenth of the seventh month. Their objective is not quite clear, but their attempted analogy is absurd.
When it was read to Rabbi Hyamson, he threw up his hands in a gesture of horror and disgust. For to all
devout Jews Atonement Day holds a place far above all other annual Sabbaths, and is above analogy to any
other activity of the year.
The same Bible chapter that tells us the first, fifteenth, and twenty second days of the seventh
month are Sabbaths, tells us also, and in more emphatic language, that the tenth day of the month is a
Sabbath of Sabbaths.
Must Surrender Another Claim

Furthermore, with this tenth day of the seventh month allowed to come in a "work-day column,"
what becomes of the interpretation that "the command to work six days is just as binding as the one to rest
on the seventh"? How could a man put in six days of labor between the eighth and the fifteenth of that
month, seeing he must wholly abstain from work on the tenth? Simple arithmetic prevents that. Now if the
Sabbath commandment does not here demand six days of work following a Sabbath, then how can it be
made to demand it in connection with Pentecost? But if the demand be surrendered, then the whole
argument based on the "extra Sabbath" at Pentecost collapses. In other words, if during the seventh month a
man need work only four days between the Sabbath of the tenth and the Sabbath of the fifteenth, why is it
necessary that during the third month he must work six days following the Sabbath of the fifth (Pentecost)
before he can have a Sabbath day's rest again?
Therefore this marvelous calendar cannot be made to operate successfully, even when we accept
the premises set forth by the authors themselves. This is truly a most remarkable situation. Propositions 1
and 2 cannot be held at the same time.
Into what confusion would those ancient Israelites have been brought had they attempted to
employ the premises of this Gamble theory to the understanding of the Sabbath commandment!
Yes, and what confusion is brought to the Sunday advocates who believe these annual Sabbaths
are decalogue Sabbaths, and that the fourth commandment simply requires rest on a seventh day after six
days of work.
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Only One Escape From Confusion

The only escape from this confusion is to reject propositions 1 and 2 as false, and to return to the
age-honored interpretation of this whole Sabbath question. This interpretation is built upon certain
historical facts:
1. That "from time immemorial," as the Encyclopaedia Britannica phrases it * there has existed a unit of
time measurement called the "week."
2. That this time unit is distinct and altogether separate from the month or the year.
3. That the Jewish nation, throughout its history, employed this time unit, which was finally adopted by the
whole civilized world.
4. That "the seventh day" of the Sabbath command has always been understood by the Jewish people to
mean the seventh day of the week.
No facts of history are better substantiated than the foregoing. When we understand "tlie seventh day" in
the commandment to mean the seventh day of the week, we have an interpretation that will harmonize with
both history and the Bible.
Propositions 3 and 4
Now, what of the claims made in propositions 3 and 4? First, let us dispose briefly of the assertion
that in the Sabbath commandment,
* "The week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions, circumstance
to which it owes its unalterable uniformity. . . . It has been employed from time immemorial in almost all
Eastern countries; and as it forms neither an aliquot part of the year nor the lunar month, those who reject
the Mosaic recital will be at a loss, as Delambre remarks. To assign it to an origin having much semblance
of probability." - Article "Calendar," vol. 4 (11th Edition), page 988.
work on the six days is as definitely commanded as rest on the seventh. If the authors conscientiously
believe this to be the true interpretation, they ought to raise their voices against the trend toward a five-day
work week.
We have already discovered the impossibility, during the first and seventh months, of obeying a
command to work six consecutive days. But, worse still, a man who thus interpreted the commandment
could never take a day's vacation during the six-day period. Happily for all concerned, the word shall, in the
phrase "six days shall thou labor," does not necessarily indicate a command. It may simply indicate
permission. The Hebrew word allows of either. Context and usage determine the meaning. A comparison of
various scriptures, coupled with the united and uninterrupted sense in which not only Jewish but Christian
scholars have understood the term, leaves no doubt that the word shall is simply permissive. We are
permitted six days in which to work.
"Sabbath" Has Various Meanings

Applying this rule of context and usage-the proper rule to employ in examining words-to the term
Sabbath, brings us to grips with the underlying premise of this whole theory, the proper meaning of the
word Sabbath. The assumption of the Gamble theory is that the word has only one meaning, and in
harmony with this belief the word Sabbath in the Ten Commandments is applied to the annual Sabbaths.
But if mere similarity of words is sufficient proof of similarity of thought, then confusion would
arise on every side. Take the word day, for example. We employ it sometimes to mean twenty-four hours,
and sometimes to mean simply the light part of the twenty-four-hour period. Again, we may use it wholly
in a figurative sense, as, This is the day of opportunity. But there rarely need be any doubt as to the
meaning intended. The context, the setting, makes it clear.
As a Biblical illustration, take the word law. It may mean the moral, civil, and ceremonial
commands contained in the books of Moses. By extension it may mean the whole of Moses' writings, as in
the phrase, "the law and the prophets."
Such illustrations from either the Bible or everyday life might be multiplied indefinitely. Only
confusion can result from a failure to remember that a word may have more than one rigid and restricted
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definition.
Summary Of meanings
When we examine the term Sabbath in this fashion, we discover, as might naturally be expected,
that it has more than one meaning. The Hebrew lexicons reveal that-
1. The word Sabbath has as its root meaning, "rest from labor.”
2. The term is used primarily to denote the day of rest from labor at the close of the weekly cycle-
the sense in which the word is used in the Sabbath commandment.
3. By extension, the term is used for the annual feasts, such as the Passover Sabbath, etc.
4. The term is used also to mean a week, as in the phrase, "seven Sabbaths shall there be
complete." Lev. 23:15, A.R.V. The use of the word in this sense naturally grew out of the fact that the
Sabbath coming at the end of each week marked off these seven-day units.
There are more senses in which the term may be used, but these are sufficient for the problem
before us. (See page 236 for further comments on the value of the word Sabbath.)
Just when one definition should be employed, and when another, is no more difficult to determine
than with numerous other words.
With these various definitions of the word Sabbath before us, let us examine the pivotal text of this
whole theory, the text on which proposition 3 is built:
"You shall count unto you from the morrow after the (Passover] Sabbath [the fifteenth of the first
month, Abib], from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave-offering; seven Sabbaths shall there be
complete: even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall you number fifty days!' "You shall make
proclamation on the selfsame day [that is, on the fiftieth day, Pentecost]; there shall he a holy convocation
unto you; you shall do no servile work." Verses 15, 16, 21.
View Held by Sadducees

Viewing this scripture historically, we find that two interpretations have been held. About two
thousand years ago there existed for a limited period a Jewish sect called the Sadducees. They held that the
word Sabbath in these texts should be understood to mean the Sabbath of the Ten Commandments. This
was one point of controversy between them and the Pharisees, who represented the accepted interpretation
that has come down to out day. Because of this, the Sadducces contended that the count of the fifty days
should not be begun on the sixteenth of Abib, which was "the morrow after the [Passover] Sabbath" of the
fifteenth. But that the count should begin on the day that followed the first decalogue Sabbath in Passover
week. For example, if Passover Sabbath came on Thursday, they held that "the morrow after the Sabbath"
was the following Sunday, because it was "the morrow after" the decalogue Sabbath. According to their
interpretation-which was held by a very limited number and for an equally limited period-Pentecost would
always come on Sunday.
But the Sadducees did not therefore believe in breaking the weekly cycle. Their interpretation
forbade allowing even the name Sabbath to be coupled with the Passover or any other annual Sabbath. To
them, the word itself as found in the fourth commandment was wholly apart from, and above, contact with
annual feasts. When they came to the week end at the close of the seven-week period after the Passover the
Sadducces rested from all labor on that seventh day Sabbath and "servile work" the first day of the next
week, which, according to their reckoning, was Pentecost. And when the seventh day of that week arrived,
they kept Sabbath again. This was no more difficult for them to do than it is for a present-day devout
Sabbath keeper to rest from labor on Saturday of one week, take a holiday on Sunday of the next week, and
then rest again from labor the next Saturday.
How Jewish Scholars Translate the Passage

But when we turn to the now universally accepted understanding of these texts by all Jewish
scholars, we find the Gamble theory demolished with equal completeness. This interpretation renders the
phrases "seven Sabbaths" and "the morrow after the seventh Sabbath," as "seven weeks," and "the morrow
after the seventh week." For Jewish authorities have never confused the decalogue Sabbath with annual
Sabbaths, and accordingly have understood that the term Sabbath can have different meanings. For
example, if Passover Sabbath came on Wednesday, the fifty-day count would begin on Thursday of that
week, and Pentecost would come on Thursday of the seventh week. Thus there would not even be a
doubling up of Sabbaths at Pentecost time. Therefore the passage fails to give any support to the Gamble
theory.
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Furthermore, let us repeat, the translation of Sabbath as "week" in this passage is not based upon
the view of some few Hebrew scholars who have a particular theory to maintain, but represents the
translation that has been employed through all the centuries by all Jewish scholars. With the exception of
the limited period when the small sect of Sadducces held a differing view. And is today the translation
employed by both Orthodox and Reform rabbis.
In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament completed in the second century BC,
the word Sabbath in Leviticus 23:15, 16 is translated by the Greek word hebdomas, meaning "week."
Indeed, no other meaning than "week" could consistently be understood for the word Sabbath in
the phrases "seven Sabbaths" and “the morrow after the seventh Sabbath," in Leviticus 23:15, 16. For the
parallel passage in Deuteronomy 16:9, 10 reads thus: "Seven weeks shall thou number unto thee: from the
time thou begins to put the sickle to the standing grain shall thou begin to number seven weeks. And thou
shall keep the feast of weeks unto Jehovah." The Hebrew word translated "week" in Deuteronomy 16
cannot be translated “Sabbath.” Therefore, the only way to make Leviticus and Deuteronorny harmonize is
to give the meaning of "week" to Sabbath in the passage in Leviticus 23. This, as we have already learned,
may properly be done.
Furthermore, it is an interesting fact that the Jewish people use not only the word Pentecost to
describe the feast day that comes fifty (lays after Passover, but they call it also the Feast of Weeks.
Directly bearing on this point is a letter received from Dr. Cyrus Adler, president of Dropsie
College, Philadelphia, and an outstanding Hebrew scholar. It was written in response to a request for his
views on this question.
"THE DROPSIE COLLEGE
"For Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 'Philadelphia,
"January 31, 1929.
"DEAR MR. NICHOL:

"I am in receipt of your letter of January 25. I have not the pamphlet of Dr. Marvin and Moses
Cotsworth before me, although I think I saw it some time ago. There is no warrant for their theory that there
was an extra Sabbath in connection with Pentecost. If you desire to see the Jewish normal interpretation of
these verses, I would refer you to the translation of the Bible issued by the Jewish Publication Society of
Philadelphia in 1917. I give these verses herewith: 'And you shall count onto you front the morrow after the
day [Hebrew, Sabbath] of rest, front the day that you brought the sheaf of the waving. Seven weeks shall
there be complete; even unto the morrow after the seventh week shall you number fifty days; and you shall
present a new meal offering unto the Lord.'
"This represents a very old controversy. According to the Jewish tradition, the Biblical
commandment to offer the omer 'on the morrow after the Sabbath' was interpreted by the rabbis to refer to
Passover, so that it means that the seven weeks should begin to be counted from the first day after the
beginning of Passover. There was an early interpretation that it should begin on the first day after the first
Sabbath during Passover, which would make Pentecost always fall on Sunday. This sectarian view has
completely disappeared.
"But what I would point out to you is that even this sectarian view in no way favors the idea of a
wandering Sabbath, it rather emphasizes the word 'Sabbath' so that it could not be used even for another
holiday. I can say to you most emphatically that whatever perturbations there have been concerning the
Jewish calendar from the earliest period down, the one central feature was always to maintain- the week of
seven days without any interruption whatsoever.
"Very sincerely yours,

"[Signed] CYRUS ADLER."
Essentially the same analysis of this passage in Leviticus is given in a long letter from Dr. H. S.
Linfield, of the American Jewish Committee, New York City. After examining all the Bible texts employed
by the calendar authors, he concludes his letter thus: "An examination of each passage has convinced the
writer that there is not a shred of evidence in support of any of the claims made by the joint authors."
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Significance of Double Feast Days Today

One small piece of corroborative evidence on this double-Sabbath argument remains to be
demolished. After declaring that in ancient times the Jews kept such a double Sabbath, the authors add this
persuasive item of news: "The significant fact remains, that through traditional usage the Jews generally
continue to observe two days at the feast of Pentecost." In reply I inquire: If at the present time a devout
Jew can observe two days at Pentecost without breaking the cycle of the week, why could he not have done
so anciently?
The fact is that when the Jews were dispersed from Palestine, they began the custom of keeping
two days in connection with each annual Sabbath-excepting Atonement Day-for fear that in their
calculating of the new moons they might have made an error in determining the beginning of a month. (The
explanation for the failure to observe the two days in connection with Atonement Day is that it would have
necessitated forty-eight hours of complete fast.) By the time a calendar had been agreed upon by the
"Dispersed" throughout the world which was somewhere about the fourth century AD, the custom of
celebrating two days for each annual Sabbath had become so firmly established that it was retained by most
Jews. This second day that is kept in connection with each of the annual Sabbaths is described in Hebrew
by a phrase which, translated literally, means: "The second day feast of the exile." This is a familiar phrase
in Talmudic lore.
An Argument for Us
Therefore, for the purposes the authors intended, "the significant fact of the double Sabbaths now
kept by Jews in various lands has no significance. Instead it has a significance on our side of the argument.
The fact that the reckoning of months presented such difficulties when the Jews moved from Palestine,
reveals the absolute confusion into which the Sabbath institution would have been thrown if it had been
related to the months, as this unwarranted Gamble theory contends. Only by being connected with a time
cycle, the week, that runs independently of calendars, could the Sabbath of the moral code, whose precepts
have worldwide application, be successfully kept in various lands. Only by connecting it with the cycle of
the week could the identity of the Sabbath be retained, for the week is unique in that it has come down
through the centuries independent of calendars. No matter where the "Dispersed" of Israel have been
located, and no matter what their difficulties have been in keeping the reckoning of the annual feasts that
are dependent on months, they have never had any uncertainty as to which day is "the seventh day” of the
commandment. For the sun sets regularly each night in each land. The Jews of the Dispersion have never
had any controversy with the Palestinian Jews as to which is the seventh day of the week. They have never
differed in their observance of the decalogue Sabbath. And why need they, for could not the Jews in Spain,
for example, count the cycles of seven sunsets as easily as the Jews in Palestine?
We discover, therefore, from an examination of Jewish history and from a study of the different
senses in which the word Sabbath may properly be understood, that the arguments built upon Leviticus
23:15, 16 have no foundation.
Different Sabbaths Distinguished

But let us take the matter a little further. The fact that there are different senses in which the word
may be employed, and that basically it means "rest from labor," demands that the phrase, "the seventh day,"
in the Sabbath command, possess an unmistakable definiteness.
The authors of the revived Gamble theory endeavor to give definiteness to this phrase by
attempting to place the decalogue Sabbath in a fixed relationship to the months. Abundance of proof that
this cannot be done has already been offered. Still further proof is offered by summarizing the command for
the decalogue Sabbath alongside the commands for the annual Sabbaths. When Jehovah proclaimed the
Sabbath commandment, the Israelites listened to these identifying facts:
Strong Contrasts in Sabbaths
1. Six days shall work be done.

2. The seventh day is the rest day of Jehovah-no work shall be done.
3. In six days Jehovah created the earth, and rested the seventh day.
4. Jehovah hallowed this day, that is, set it apart for a holy use.
Later, when Moses instructed the children of Israel as to the annual feast days (see Leviticus 23),
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they received these facts:
1. On the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the first month-first and last days, respectively, of the
Feast of Unleavened Bread no servile work shall be done.
2. On the fiftieth day from "the morrow after the" fifteenth of the first month-known later as
Pentecost-there shall be a special ceremony of offering "two wave loaves"-"no servile work shall be done.
3. On the first day of the seventh month there shall be a memorial of blowing of trumpets "no
servile work shall he done.
4. On the tenth day of the seventh month there shall be the Day of Atonement-"you shall do no
manner of work."
5. On the fifteenth and twenty-second days of the seventh month the beginning and the end of the
Feast of Tabernacles-"no servile work shall be done.
Other distinguishing characteristics might be enumerated, but these will suffice to provide more
than enough material for a series of strong reasons why the decalogue Sabbath and the annual Sabbaths,
such as the Passover and Pentecost, are not the same:
1. If the two kinds of Sabbaths are the same, and the Feast of Trumpets, for example, on the first
day of the seventh month, was a decaIogue Sabbath, why was it necessary for Moses solemnly to inform
the hosts of Israel that the opening day of the Feast of Tabernacles, on the fifteenth of the month, was also a
Sabbath? Could not even the simplest have comprehended that if the first of the month is a Sabbath, two
cycles of seven would cause the fifteenth to be a Sabbath also? Or more incredible still, if the opening day
of the Feast of Tabernacles on the fifteenth was a decalogue Sabbath, how utterly pointless for Moses to
inform them that the closing day of that feast on the twenty-second was a Sabbath also. Anyone capable of
counting tip to seven would have known that already, for is not fifteen plus seven, twenty-two?
Indeed, if the Israelites were so hopelessly dull-witted as to necessitate such specific instruction as
to what date in the month was seven clays later than the fifteenth, would they not also need to be instructed
as to what date came seven days later than the twenty-second, and so on throughout the year? Why single
out one month, the seventh month at that? Why wait until the year is half over before giving them detailed
information? The fact that Moses so solemnly announced the fifteenth and twenty-second days of the
seventh month as Sabbaths reveals clearly that these dates were not automatically Sabbaths by virtue of the
fourth commandment.
2. The fact has already been noted-but is so conclusive as to justify repeating it in this summary-
that the annual Sabbaths are not generally separated by seven-day periods, and no possible arrangement of
dates can make them all come in that sequence.
3. The reasons given for observing these various Sabbaths are different. The decalogue Sabbath
was to be a holy rest day because "in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth. . . . and rested the seventh
day." But the first day of the seventh month, for example, was to be a day of rest because it was the Feast of
Trumpets. And the tenth day of that month, because it was Atonement Day; and the fifteenth and twenty-
second, because they were the opening and closing dates of the Feast of Tabernacles. In the case of the
decalogue Sabbath, the reason for its observance remained the same continually. But with the annual
Sabbaths the reason is different in each case.
Now, when the Israelites learned that they were to do no servile work on the fifteenth and twenty-
second of the seventh month, because these dates marked the beginning and end of the Feast of
Tabernacles. What possible reason was there for them to conclude that they should rest also on the eighth
or the twenty-ninth of that month, for example, seeing that these dates marked neither the beginning nor the
end of any feast? Rather would they reach the very opposite conclusion.
4. The fact that it was necessary to command the people to refrain from work on each of these
annual feasts reveals that they were not decalogue Sabbaths, for the fourth commandment already forbade
“any work on the "seventh day" decalogue Sabbaths.
5. The decalogue Sabbath is specifically connected with a time unit of seven days, which,
according to the Bible and the best secular authorities, has been employed by the Jews and various other
Eastern peoples "from time immemorial.” But the annual Sabbaths were specifically connected with a time
reckoning that began at the Exodus, for that was "the beginning of months" for the Israelites. It was then
that their months received distinguishing titles; "first month" and "seventh month," for example. (See Ex.
12:1,2.) Each feast was to be on a certain day of a certain month.
When we consider "the seventh day" Sabbath in terms of the week, then are we able to harmonize
theology, philology (the science which deals with the meanings of words), and the understanding of the
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commandment by the Jewish race through all their history.
The Word "Week" Analyzed

Take the word week. This word, when found in the Old Testament, comes from a root meaning
"seven." To reveal the close relationship between these two terms, it should be explained that in ancient
Hebrew only the consonants were written. The context, the setting of the word in the sentence, enabled the
reader to know which of the possible variant meanings should be understood in each case. Written in this
fashion without vowels, the words translated "seven" and "week" are identical. Thus the ancient scribe had
to decide by the context whether to give it one pronunciation and read it as "seven" or give it a little
different pronunciation and read it as "week," for in the spoken language there was a slight difference in
pronunciation.
To be more exact, when the hearer listened to the word as pronounced for "week," there was really
conveyed to his mind the thought of "sevenfold," "a combination of seven," or "sevened," which would be a
very literal way of translating the Hebrew word for "week." Thus embedded in the roots of that ancient
language is found one of the strongest proofs, not only of the existence but of the great antiquity, of a time
cycle of seven days.
A Contradiction of Terms
To an ancient Hebrew the phrase "a week of eight days- would have sounded like a contradiction
of terms, for how could eight be "Sevenfold"? A modern comparison would be the phrase "a fortnight of
sixteen days." For how could a fortnight, a contraction of "fourteen nights," be sixteen?
This important fact as to the meaning of the Hebrew word makes altogether irrelevant the
extended comments and tables in the Gamble book regarding the eight-day weeks of certain pagan peoples
and the nine-day weeks of others. We are no more concerned with the many time cycles of these peoples
than we are with their many gods.
The Scriptures themselves speak of the week long before the giving of the law on Mount Sinai.
Laban said to his son-in-law Jacob with regard to Leah, 'Fulfill her week." (Gen. 29:27.) The history of
Jewish customs reveals that this phrase refers to the week of wedding festivities which were considered a
part of the ceremony, and which lasted seven days. A comparison with verse 22 shows that the feast had
been called, and a comparison with various other scriptures reveals the custom of holding feasts seven days.
Thus does the Bible itself corroborate strongly the undisputed understanding of this passage as given by the
historians of Jewish customs. And thus does the Bible corroborate the united statements of learned
authorities, that the week has been known "from time immemorial."
What Other Conclusion?

The hosts who gathered at Sinai were a people whose ancestor Jacob was well acquainted with the
time cycle called the week, and whose language employed a term meaning "a combination of seven” to
describe that cycle. What, then, would be their most natural conclusion when they listened to Jehovah
speak twice in the Sabbath commandment of a cycle of seven days-six days shall thou labor, but the
seventh day is the Sabbath-in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested the seventh? In the
absence of any declaration to the contrary, would they not most obviously conclude that "the seventh day"
meant the seventh day of the week, that long-established combination of seven days? To that most natural
conclusion Jews everywhere through all the centuries have come. And to what other conclusion could they
rationally have been expected to come, seeing they knew nothing of the Gamble calendar! We are therefore
prepared to take our leave of this revived Gamble theory. But, wait, there is one more piece of evidence that
is triumphantly presented as a sort of capstone to the involved argument so confidently set forth.
The Case Summed Up

This capstone consists of an alleged proof-independent of the main line of argument-that the
second year of the Mosaic calendar began on a Sabbath. In order properly to introduce this last point, let us
summarize briefly the whole series of propositions that the calendar authors have reared up:
1. If the Mosaic calendar was a 365-day solar calendar (but virtually all authorities declare it was
not); and
2. If Moses divided this 365-day calendar on the basic plan of the Egyptian calendar (but for this
there is not the slightest proof).
3. If Moses placed three supplementary days at the end of the sixth month and two at the end of
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the twelfth (but for this there is no proof whatever).

4. If the Sabbath commandment means simply one (lay of rest following six days of labor (but
evidence shows it does not mean this).
5. If the command to work six days is as compulsory as the command to rest the seventh (but it is
not).
6. If the Passover Sabbath came on the fifteenth of the first month, then the first day of the first
month of the first year came on a Sabbath. Because it was exactly two weeks earlier (but the Passover
Sabbath was not a decalogue Sabbath, and therefore counting back from it by sevens proves nothing).
7. If the Israelites reached Sinai on the third day of the third month (but this is an assumption
incapable of proof).
8. If the three-day period in preparation for the giving of the law began on the third day of the third
month (but this also is sheer assumption).
9. If there was a double Sabbath at Pentecost, with the extra Sabbath not counted in the cycle of
the week (but there was no such extra Sabbath outside the week).
10. Thus and thus only could the first day of the second year begin on the same weekday as the
first year.
11. Now with the point already proved that the first day of the first year began on Sabbath (but the
point has been fully disproved); therefore
12. If we can prove from independent evidence that the second year began on a Sabbath, we will
have provided a convincing demonstration that our argument concerning a blank day in the Mosaic
calendar is correct!
The Capstone Examined

And what is this clinching demonstration that is to give the final proof to a theory that has been
refuted at every step-this evidence that the second year began on a Sabbath? Here it is: The command to set
the show bread in order every Sabbath is cited (Lev. 4:8), and then the following passage is quoted:
"It came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the
tabernacle was reared up. "And he [Aaron] put the table in the tent of meeting, upon the side of the
tabernacle northward, without the veil. And he set the bread in order upon it before Jehovah; as Jehovah
commanded Moses.” Ex. 40:17, 22, 23. (Italics theirs.)
But the authors have quoted only Part Of the scripture. Here is the Whole Passage:
“It came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the
tabernacle was reared up. And Moses reared up the tabernacle, and laid its sockets, and set up the boards
thereof, and put in the bars thereof, and reared up its pillars. And he spread the tent over the tabernacle, and
put the covering of the tent above upon it as Jehovah commanded Moses. And he took and put the
testimony into the ark, and set the staves of the ark and put the mercy-seat above upon the ark. And he
brought the ark into the tabernacle, and set up the veil of the screen, and screened the ark of the testimony;
as Jehovah commanded Moses. And he put the table in the tent of meeting, upon the side of the tabernacle
northward, without the veil. And he set the bread in order upon it before Jehovah; as Jehovah commanded
Moses.” Ex. 40:17-23.
The Capstone Collapses

When the whole scripture is quoted, the matter assumes a very different aspect. Moses and his helpers were
certainly tremendously busy that first day of the first month of the second year. The scene around the
tabernacle must have been one of great physical activity, of diligent work, as the sockets were laid, the
boards set up, the bars put in, the pillars reared up, the tent spread over, and the covering put above it-to
recount only a part of the work that was done.
If that were proper to do on the Sabbath jay, we would have an excellent precedent for building
churches on the Sabbath. But then what would become of the command not to do "any work" on that holy
day? And how would the Israelites be able to harmonize such labor with the warning that prefaced the
whole episode of tabernacle building? For when Moses descended from the mount with the plans for the
sanctuary, as recorded in the end of the thirty-fourth chapter, he assembled all the people to invite their
participation in the making of the tabernacle; and from the opening of the thirty-fifth chapter to the close of
the fortieth, the record deals exclusively with -the construction of this center of worship. And thus is the
whole narrative introduced:
"Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of Israel, and said unto them, These are the
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words which Jehovah bath commanded, that you should do them. Six days shall work be done; but on the
seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a Sabbath of solemn rest to Jehovah. Whosoever does any
work therein shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath
day.” Ex. 35:1-3.
Then follows immediately the description of plans for the tabernacle, which, as has already been
noted, must have called for an immense amount of physical labor. Jehovah left no uncertainty in the minds
of the people as to the specific relationship of the Sabbath command to the task of building the house of the
Lord. For He warned them immediately before they began this great task, that the seventh day should be a
"Sabbath of solemn rest." Therefore the passage quoted by the authors as a climax to their whole argument,
and as an irrefutable proof that the first day of the second year was a Sabbath, fails utterly to aid them. In
fact, it proves the opposite from what they intended-it proves that the first day of the second year was not a
Sabbath.
No Conflict in Commands
And now lest someone should feel that the fact this first day of the second year was not a Sabbath
presents a difficulty because of the command to set the show bread in order on the Sabbath, let us make a
few observations. A command as to any feature of routine ritual cannot become operative until after the
ritual is established. For example, the Lord declared to Abraham, "He that is eight days old shall be
circumcised among you.” Gen. 17:12. Then follows this statement: "Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all
that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of
Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the selfsame day, as God had said unto
him." Verse 23. Should we therefore conclude that there was no "male among the men of Abraham's house"
who was more than an infant of eight days? The very next verses specifically declare that Abraham himself
was ninety-nine years old and Ishmael thirteen at this time. Did Abraham therefore go contrary to the
command of God? No. The law as to the age of circumcision applied, not to the instituting of the rite, but to
the operation of it once it had been instituted.
Thus with the show bread. The solemn rite of changing the bread each Sabbath could not apply
until there was bread on the table to change. And in fact the whole series of instructions regarding the ritual
of the tabernacle, as given in Leviticus 24, most obviously could not apply until after the tabernacle was
completed and set in operation.
But an even more simple answer can be given by declaring that there is no proof that the show
bread was set in order on that first day. The whole passage from the seventeenth to the thirty-third verse
deals with the final work of rearing up the tabernacle from the material that had been furnished. That series
of verses relates to a great number of acts that might conceivably have taken several days. To declare that
they must all have taken place on the one date mentioned at the beginning of the passage is to make an
assumption that is impossible of proof. It is similar to the argument the authors attempted to draw out of the
nineteenth chapter of Exodus. But assumption is of the essence of this Gamble theory, and it remains
assumption to the end.
Cotsworth and Marvin assure us calmly that this marvelous calendar they have been describing
was lost by the Jews when they went into Babylonian captivity. Just why seventy years in Babylon should
cause them to abandon so vital, so remarkable, a method of time reckoning is not made clear! Indeed, the
authors do not even divulge to us how the Jews lost this calendar. Therefore no attempt to pry into the
matter will be made.
But Mr. Gamble, who brought forth the original form of the theory, has a very detailed theory as to
the change from the alleged fixed Sabbaths to free-running weekly Sabbaths. He claims that Christ kept the
fixed Sabbaths like other Jews until the time of His death, but that when He arose that Sunday morning, it
was the beginning of a new order of Sabbaths. Mr. Gamble reaches this conclusion by translating the
phrase "the first day of the week" (in Matthew 28:1 and parallel passages in the Gospels) as "the first of the
Sabbaths," or "the chiefest of the Sabbaths." This translation, as fanciful as any that Gamble has presented
in behalf of his theory, is answered under objection 47.
20. Does Matthew 28:1 Support Sunday Keeping?

HE PRECEDING CHAPTER on the theory of Mr. T Gamble was concluded with the statement
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that he endeavored to prove the transition from the fixed Sabbaths of his alleged Mosaic calendar to the
Sunday of the free-running week, by giving a different translation to Matthew 28:1 and parallel passages.
This point is examined in a separate chapter because, in a sense, it is a separate argument for Sunday
observance. Many opponents of the Sabbath who do not attempt to build any case on the Gamble claims of
ancient fixed Sabbaths, bring forth impressively the argument that “the first day of the week” (Matthew
28:1) should be translated “the first of the Sabbaths,” or “one of the Sabbaths,” and that this indicates that
the apostles spoke of the resurrection Sunday as the first of a new order of Sabbaths.
The basis of the contention by Mr. Gamble and those who have followed him is that the Greek
word Sabbaton translated “week” in Matthew 28:1 and parallel passages, should never thus be translated,
that instead it should always be rendered “Sabbath.” Sabbaton occurs in the New Testament sixty-eight
times, and is translated “Sabbath” fifty-nine times, and “week” nine times. These nine references are:
Matthew 28: 1; Mark 16: 2, 9; Luke 18:12; 24:1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2.
To the English reader it may come as a surprise that both week and Sabbath should be translated
from the same word in the Greek. It is this fact that gives plausibility to the Gamble claim. But that two
different time periods should be described by the same term is not peculiar to the Greek. As noted in the
last chapter, we describe the twelve-hour period, the twenty four-hour period, and even a vague, indefinite
period by the same word, day. The context determines the time limit of the word day; so also with
Sabbaton. Happily, this matter of the two meanings for Sabbaton is not in dispute. All Greek scholars,
Jewish and Christian, aye in agreement as to the correctness of translating Sabbaton by “week.” The
following authoritative statements are typical:
Authorities Agree as to Double Value of Sabbaton

“WEEK (Hebrew, ‘shabua’,’ plural ‘shabu’im,’ shabu’ot; . . . New Testament Greek, sabbaton,
sabbata): A division of time comprising seven days, thus explaining the Hebrew name.”-The Jewish
Encyclopedia, vol. 12, p. 481, art. “Week.”
“The expression hebdomas [a Greek word for “week”] is not found in the New Testament, but
rather sabbaton (e.g., Luke 18:12) or sabbata (e. g., Matthew 28:1), used, however, in the sense of it.” -
Schaft-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Volume 4, Page 2484, art. “Week” (ed. 1891).
“Of the two Hebrew names for ‘week’ one is derived from the number seven, and the other is
identical with ‘Sabbath,’ the day which completes the Jewish week. The New Testament takes over the
latter word, and makes a Greek noun of it.”-Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, p. 936, article “Time” (ed. 1924).
“The Hebrew shabhud, used in the Old Testament for ‘week,’ is derived from shebha’, the word
for ‘ seven.’ As the seventh day was a day of rest, or Sabbath (Hebrew, shabbath), this word came to be
used for ‘week,’ as appears in the New Testament (shabbaton,-ta), indicating the period from Sabbath to
Sabbath (Matthew 28:1). The same usage is implied in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23:15; 25:8).” -The
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 5, p. 2982, art. “Time” (ed. 1915).
“The plural sabbata means a week as well as a Sabbath or Sabbaths (comp. Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1;
John 20:1,19; and Matthew 28:1). Sabbata in the second clause [of Matthew 28:1] certainly means ‘week’
and not the Sabbath day.” - JOHN PEYFR LANGE, A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, translated by
Philip Schaff, Comments on Matthew 28:1.
Luke 18:12, which is one of the nine texts in which sabbaton is translated “week,” is a choice
illustration of where sabbaton must be translated “week” in order to make sense. The Pharisee declared in
his prayer: “I fast twice in the week [sabbatou].” It would have been pointless for him to say that he fasted
twice in the Sabbath. There would be no mark of distinction in refraining from eating between breakfast
and dinner and between dinner and supper. Doubtless even the publican did that. Only when sabbatou in
this text is translated “week” does it make sense.
Mr. Gamble tries diligently to break the force of this passage by declaring that Luke 18:12 should
read, “I fast two Sabbaths,” that is, two of the fixed Sabbaths in the year. But the Greek will not permit this.
The word dis, translated “twice,” is an adverb, and cannot properly be translated “two.” The word
Sabbatou, translated “week,” is in the singular number, which is never translated by the plural form
“Sabbaths” in our English Bible.
The second part of the Gamble contention is based on the fact that in the Greek the word day is not
found in the phrase “first day of the week.” This phrase in Matthew 28:1 is, in the original, mian sabbaton.
Concerning its proper translation, eminent theologians and Greek scholars of Sundaykeeping
denominations have written. As far back as the year 1899, when Gamble first brought out his theory, the
claim for Sunday built upon this revised translation of mian sabbaffin was exploded by a writer in the
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Methodist Review. 1 quote briefly from his article.
“Fool’s Gold”
“This widely heralded Klondike discovery as to mian sabbaton turns out to be only the glitter of
fool’s gold. It rests upon the profoundest ignoring or ignorance of a law of syntax fundamental to inflected
speech, and especially of the usage and influence of the Aramaic tongue, which was the vernacular of Jesus
and His apostles. Must syntax die that the Sabbath may live?
“Let these affirmations [of the theory] be traversed: A. No Greek word for “day” occurs in any of
the passages [that is, in Matthew 28:1 and parallel passages].’ Made for simple readers of English, that
statement lacks candor. Said word is there, latent, to a much greater degree than it is in our phrase, ‘The
twenty-fifth of the month.’ Upon being asked, ‘The twenty-fifth what?’ the veriest child instantly replies,
‘Day.’ But stronger yet is the case in hand. The adjectival word mian is in the feminine gender, and an
immutable law requires adjective modifiers to agree with their nouns in gender. Sabbaton is of the neuter
gender, and out of the question. What feminine Greek word is latent in this phrase, and yet so patent as to
reflect upon this adjectival numeral its feminine hue? Plainly the feminine word hemera, ‘day,’ as
analogously it is found in Mark 14:12, prote hemera ton azumon, ‘the first day of unleavened bread.’
Boldly to aver that ‘no Greek word for “day” occurs in any of the passages,’ is to blind the simple English
reader to the fact that an inflected language, by its numerous genders and cases, can indicate the presence
and force of latent words to an extent undreamed of in English.
“As a vital or corroboratory part of any argument for the sanctifying of the Lord’s day, this
travestied exegesis, instead of being a monumental discovery, is but a monumental blunder. Thereby our
foes will have us in derision.
“Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Battle Creek,
Lest the daughters of the Sabbatarians rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the Saturdarians triumph.”
-DR. WILBUR FLETCHER STEELE, in an article “Must Syntax Die That the Sabbath May Live?” in the
Methodist Review, New York, May-June, 1899.
Greek Scholar Examines Whole Group of “First Day” Texts

As recently as 1931 this question of ‘mian sabbaton was raised by an inquirer in The Expositor, a
widely circulated preachers’ journal. At that time The Expositor ran a question and-answer feature entitled
“Expositions,” by the late Prof. A. T. Robertson, DD, one of the most eminent of modern Greek scholars,
and the author of a number of works on Biblical Greek, including an exhaustive grammar. For years
Professor Robertson held the chair of New Testament interpretation at the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. The question and answer are as follows:
“DEAR DR. ROBERTSON: Can it be proven, beyond doubt, that the first day of the week’ is the
proper rendition of ‘mia sabbaton, (Matthew 28: 1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24: 1; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7; and 1
Corinthians 16:2), instead of ‘one of the Sabbaths,’ as Mr. Knoch’s Concordant Version reads? The
Concordant Version reads ‘first Sabbath’ (Mark 16:9) instead of the first day of the week.’
“J. D. PHILLIPS, Editor of ‘The Truth,’ Littlefield, Texas.
After offering certain caustic comments on the Concordant Version, Dr. Robertson proceeds with
his answer:
“Now about the case of sabbat6n in the New Testament. It is the singular, the transliteration of the
Hebrew word Shabbath, which was used for the seventh day of the week, as in John 5:9. The plural,
sabbata, is a transliteration of the Aramaic shabbatha. Curiously enough, the Jews used the plural form in
two ways. One way was for a single Sabbath, like the singular sabbaton. So in Josephus. (We have ten
hebdomen Sabbata caloumen. We call the seventh day Sabbath.) Precisely this usage occurs in the New
Testament, as in Luke 4:16, ‘on the Sabbath day,’ en te hemera ton Sabbaton. So also Acts 13:14; 16:13,
just like Exodus 20:8; 35:3, etc. So also in Matthew 12:1; 5:10-12, tois sabbasin, on the Sabbath, though
plural, Mark 1:21; Luke 4.31, etc. But the word sabbaton, in the singular, was used also for the week which
began [“Began” should read “ended.” See correction by Dr. Robertson in The Expositor, October, 1931.]
with the Sabbath. So in Mark 16:9 we have proi prote sabbatou, early on the first day of the week. Here
proi is an adverb, but prote is a feminine adjective, locative, singular, agreeing with hemera (day)
understood, while sabbatou is neuter gender, genitive, singular, so that it is impossible to render this ‘early
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on the first Sabbath.’ See also Luke 18:12. But the plural sabbata is also used for the week, as in Luke 24:1.
In the preceding verse the singular occurs, to sabbaton, ‘they spent the Sabbath.’ The very next words in
verse 1 are, te de mia ton sabbaton, ‘on the first day of the week.’ There we have mia used as an ordinal
like prote, as is common in the Koine. The same use of both mia for ‘first’ and the plural sabbaton for
‘week,’ we find in Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; John 20:1, 19; Acts 20:7.”-The Expositor, August, 1931.
A Suggestion on Meeting Quibbles

Right on this point of dealing with arguments against the truth which opponents construct out of a
claim that certain passages in the Scriptures should be rendered differently than they are, I believe a brief
word might not be amiss. With our lay members becoming more and more active in presenting the truth to
the world, this type of objection has to be met by them increasingly. They may not have had the privilege of
studying the original languages, or may not have available the standard commentaries which, in most cases,
reveal the unreasonableness of quibbles built on the claim that some different rendering of the scripture
should be given.
What, then, is the layman to do when he is confronted with such an argument? Become confused
and withdraw from the field? Not at all. Instead, he should reply briefly that the translations of the Bible
into the English language, the King James Version, and later the Revised, are the product of the united
endeavors of a large group of the most learned Greek scholars ever gathered together, and that he sees no
reason for making a drastic change in their translation simply because some lone man of the present day
declares that there ought to be a change.
That is about all the answer that is needed. It is a sound and substantial one, and will appeal to the
reason of any unprejudiced person who hears it. Of course, this does not mean that a clearer understanding
of a Bible passage cannot sometimes be obtained by reference to the original language, as is well illustrated
in the matter of the original terms for soul and spirit. But calling attention to the original words and the
possible alternate translation allowed by the lexicons, is an altogether different thing from manufacturing
translations that violate the primary rules of the original languages.
21. Antiquity and Unbroken Sequence of Weekly Cycle

THE AGITATION for calendar revision, which first became really active in the United States
about the year 1928, served the useful purpose of placing eminent astronomers on record concerning the
antiquity and the unbroken sequence of the weekly cycle. Never before in the Christian Era has a
proposition turned so directly on the question of the validity of the week as an ancient, unbroken time
cycle. Much money has been spent to promote the proposed new calendar, and arguments ranging from the
sublime to the ridiculous have been employed in an attempt to break down the opposition.
The most significant fact that stands out of the whole discussion is that the proponents of calendar
revision have not included in their varied arguments any claim that the weekly cycle has been broken or
that time has been lost. If they could have made and supported such a claim, it would have demolished with
one stroke all the appeals of Jews or Seventh day Adventists for the preservation of the unbroken week; for
why be zealous to preserve the week of today if it has been broken in the past? This silence of the calendar
advocates on the question of the weekly cycle must ever stand as one of the eloquent proofs that the weekly
cycle has not been broken. The fact may properly be stressed in discussing “Lost Time” with anyone.
But more than that, various astronomers, when asked to express their scientific opinion as to the
wisdom of a new calendar which included a feature that broke the weekly cycle, opposed the change on the
ground that this cycle should not be tampered with. Their comments are found in the official League of
Nations document entitled Report on the Reform of the Calendar, Submitted to the Advisory and Technical
Committee for Communications and Transit of the League of Nations by the Special Committee of Enquiry
Into the Reform of the Calendar. This document was published at Geneva, August 17, 1926. The following
are quotations from their statements, with the page number of this calendar report noted at the end of each
quotation:
Testimony of Astronomers
“The reform would break the division of the week which has been followed for thousands of years,
and therefore as been hallowed by immemorial use.”-M. Anders Donner, formerly professor of astronomy
at the University of Helsingfors, p. 51.
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“One essential point is that of the continuity of the week. The majority of the members of the
Office of Longitudes considered that the reform of the calendar should not be based on the breaking of this
continuity. They considered that it would be highly undesirable to interrupt a continuity which has existed
for so many centuries.” M. Emile.Picard, permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences [France],
president of the Office of Longitudes, p. 51.
“I have always hesitated to suggest breaking the continuity of tile week, which is without a doubt
the most ancient scientific institution bequeathed to us by antiquity.”-M. Edouard Baillaud, director of the
Paris Observatory, p. 52.
‘It is very inadvisable to interrupt by means of blank days the absolute continuity of the weeks-the
only guaranty in the past, present, and future of an efficient control of chronological facts.”-Frederico Oom,
director of the Astronomical Observatory of Lisbon, Portugal, p. 74.
Testimony Before a Congressional Committee

Between December 20, 1928, and January 21, 1929, hearings were held by the Committee on
Foreign Affairs of tile House of Representatives at Washington, D.C., on a bill (H..I.Res. 334) that called
for an international conference for the simplification of the calendar. One of the witnesses who appeared
before the Committee was W. S. Eichelberger, of the U.S. Naval Observatory, whose chief work was the
preparation of the annual Nautical Almanac, the bible of all mariners. Here is a part of the testimony of
Eichelberger in response to questions from Congressmen Sol Bloom and Cyrenus Cole:
“MR. BLOOM.... Is it not a fact that the dates are changed [in the calendar changes that have been made]
but never the days? Do you know one time in the history of any calendar from the beginning of the early
Egyptian calendar, that the day of the week has been changed?
“MR. EICHELBERGER. No; I do not.
“MR. BLOOM. The dates have been changed?
“MR. EICHELBERGER. Yes.
“MR. BLOOM. You can change any date of the calendar if you wish, as when Pope Gregory left off 10
days in 1582 and then the British left off 11 days in their calendar, which is the Gregorian calendar that we
are operating under. The dates have been changed but never has the day been changed.
“MR. EICHELBERGER. As far as I know, that is right....
“MR. COLE. . . . Is there any foundation for the idea that the Sabbath or the other days of the week have
come down in unbroken continuity from the earliest times? They may have changed the dates, but
Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday-those days have come in regular
6uccession from the earliest times so far as we know.
“MR. EICHELBERGER. So far as we know they have.’ - “Simplification of the Calendar,” a
Congressional Report, pp. 68, 71.
Nature, the leading scientific journal of Great Britain, in an editorial department entitled “Our
Astronomical Column,” carried an item “Calendar Reform,” in which the proposed blank-day calendar was
discussed. In part it reads as follows:
“The interruption of the regular sequence of weeks, which have now been running without a break
for some three thousand years, excites the antagonism of a number of people. Some of these (the Jews, and
also many Christians) accept the week as a divine institution, with which it is unlawful to tamper. Others,
without the scruples, still feel that it is useful to maintain a time unit that, unlike all others, has proceeded in
absolutely invariable manner since what may be called the dawn of history. This view found support at the
meeting of the International Astronomical Union at Rome in 1922.” - June 6, 1931.
Different Calendars Agree on Week

A very strong proof that the count of the week has not been lost during the Christian Era is the fact
that although Jews, Christians, and Moslems keep different calendars, they all agree on the order of the
days of the week. On this point, Samuel M. Zwemer, D.D., long known as ad authority on
Mohammedanism, and for some years a professor at Princeton University, writing under the title “An
Egyptian Government Almanac,” said in part:
“Some years ago I wrote an article on ‘The Clock, the Calendar, and the Koran,’ showing that the
religion which Mohammed founded bears everywhere the imprint of his life and character. The connection
between the clock, the calendar, and the Koran may not appear obvious to the Western reader, but to those
living in Egypt and the Orient the connection is perfectly evident. Both the clock and the calendar are
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regulated by the book of the Prophet. The Moslem calendar ... is fixed according to the laws of the Koran
and orthodox tradition, based upon the practice of Mohammed himself.
“This connection and confusion of the clock, the calendar, and the Koran brings about the result
that the only time reckoning on which Christians, Moslems, and Jews agree in the Orient is that of the days
of the week. These are numbered and called by their numbers, save Friday and Saturday, which are known
as the ‘day of the assembling,’ and the ‘day of the Sabbath.” – The United Presbyterian, Sept. 26, 1929.
On the opposite page is a reproduction of the calendar year AD. 1582, in Spain, Portugal, and Italy, the
countries that complied immediately with the calendar revision decree of Pope Gregory XIII. The light-
face type indicates the Julian calendar, and the bold-face, the Gregorian. The calendar change called for
the dropping of ten days. This was effected by causing October 4, Julian reckoning, immediately by
October 15, Gregorian reckoning. But there was no break in the weekly cycle. The people retired
Thursday night, October 4, Julian reckoning, and awakened next morning to find it Friday, October 15,
Gregorian reckoning.
Julian and Gregorian Calendars

The relation of the calendar change-Julian to Gregorian to the weekly cycle is stated briefly in the
Catholic Encyclopedia. It is most appropriate to quote from this Catholic work, for the calendar change was
made by a pope. This is the only calendar change in the Christian Era. The quotation follows:
“It is to be noted that in the Christian period the order of days of the week has never been
interrupted. Thus, when Gregory XIII reformed the calendar, in 1582, Thursday, 4 October, was followed
by Friday, 15 October. So in England, in 1752, Wednesday, 2 September, was followed by Thursday, 14
September.” - Volume 3, p. 740, art. “Chronology.”
Correspondence With an American Astronomer

Still further evidence that time has not been lost, and that the weekly cycle has in no way been
affected by any calendar change, is contained in letters received from two eminent astronomers. Under date
of February 25, 1932, a letter was sent to Dr. A. James Robertson, at that time director, American
Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, at the Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C.
The astronomer who is the director of the Nautical Almanac, or the American Ephemeris, as it is
generally known, to distinguish it from the British Nautical Almanac, must always be a man in the very
first rank of his profession. For it is the computations found in this weighty volume, published annually,
that govern navigation for all American ships. Following is the major part of the letter to him:
‘DEAR DR. ROBERTSON:

“I have just been reading statements by various astronomers of Europe to the effect that the
weekly cycle has come down to us unbroken from very ancient times. In other words, that the seventh day
of our present week, for example, is identical with the seventh day of the week of Bible times. I write
therefore to inquire:
1. Do you concur in these statements regarding the antiquity and unbroken sequence of the week?
Or, to state the matter negatively, Have any of your investigations of past time given you any reason to
doubt these statements?
‘2. Have the changes in our calendar in past centuries affected in any way the cycle of the week?
“3. To make my inquiry very concrete: According to the Bible record and the universal belief of
Christians, Christ was crucified on a Friday and lay in the tomb on Saturday, which was ‘the Sabbath day
according to the commandment’ (Luke 23:56). My question is this: Is the Saturday of our present time the
lineal descendant in unbroken cycles of seven from that Saturday mentioned in the record of the
crucifixion?”
See opposite page for a photographic reproduction of Dr. Robertson’s reply.
Correspondence With a British Astronomer

On February 25,1932, a letter of inquiry concerning the weekly cycle and its relation to calendar
change was addressed also to Sir Frank W. Dyson, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, who at that time
was in charge of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London.
See following page for a photographic reproduction of his reply.
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Simplify “Lost Time” Problem

It will be noted that astronomers and others speak with certainty concerning the continuity of the
weekly cycle “since long before the Christian era,” to borrow the words of Dr. Robertson of the U.S. Naval
Observatory. There is no need that we carry the question of 1ost time” back before the beginning of our era,
for the following reasons. All agree that the weekly cycle was employed in Palestine at that time, and all
Sunday keeping peoples believe that Christ arose on the first day of the week. Now, the Bible plainly states
that the day preceding that first day was “the Sabbath day according to the commandment.” Luke 23:56.
Thus the seventh day of the weekly cycle in the first century of the Christian Era was the “seventh day” of
the Sabbath command. Accordingly, it is quite unnecessary to present evidence against lost time” for the
centuries preceding Christ.
22. Gentiles and Sabbath keeping-a Letter to a Fundamentalist

SOME TIME AGO I HAD OCCASION to comment in the Review on certain articles in a
religions weekly, which declared emphatically that the Ten Commandments are still in force, but that the
Sabbath command has been changed. These articles, incidentally, were Sunday school lesson helps on the
Ten Commandments. The Review comments were sent to the writer of the articles, who is the president of
a Fundamentalist Bible school. He replied in fine Christian spirit, reaffirmed his belief in the Ten
Commandments as the moral standard for Christians, but declared he felt that this “does not strengthen the
position of Christians who keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” He also restated the position taken in his articles,
that it would be necessary to have the seventh-day Sabbath specifically enjoined on the Gentiles in order
for us to feel duty bound to obey it. He declared that “none of the Gentiles kept the Sabbath day, but they
all recognized the other commands as obligatory,” and asked the question, “Is there any evidence that the
Gentile Christians ever kept the seventh-day Sabbath?” Here is a portion of the letter that was sent in reply:
The Text of the Letter

Let me open my letter with a comment on your closing paragraph. You state that though you
believe Adventists are in error on various doctrines, this does not prevent your “recognizing their true faith
in Christ as Savior.” This is encouraging. Various of our opponents, particularly of the Bible institute type,
have, in their zeal, risen to the heights of declaring that Seventh-day Adventists turn their back on Christ,
are strangers to the gospel. And as if that were not sufficient as an excoriation, they climax it by charging
that we make Satan our savior and sin bearer. There is one redeeming feature about such sweeping charges
as these-to anyone who knows anything at all of either Adventist theology or Adventist living, such charges
collapse of their own top-heaviness and absurdity.
Permit me to direct your special attention to my comments on the relation of the Sabbath to the
moot question of the Genesis story of creation, which is the battlefield between Fundamentalists and
Modernists.
A Strange Silence
Though 1 have searched Fundamentalist literature diligently, 1 have never found any comment on
the Seventh-day Adventist statement regarding the relation of the Sabbath to the primary tenet of
Fundamentalism, the belief in the story of our world’s origin as given in Genesis. All 1 am able to find in
comment on us is merely general denunciations of us as heretics. And all the while, of course,
Fundamentalists bewail the increasing tide of skeptical Modernism in their own denominations, especially
in their denominational colleges and seminaries. Meanwhile, whatever else may be our sins and
shortcomings, Aye remain absolutely free from the corrosion of Modernism, even in our colleges and
seminaries. We could not become Modernists, which necessitates moving onto the platform ~)f evolution,
when every member of the church on the seventh day of every week turns aside from his ordinary labors to
worship Him who in six days made heaven and earth, and rested the seventh day.
I conclude from the second paragraph of your letter that you believe that the law of God is the
moral standard of life for Christians. This gives us something in common. 1 suppose that in your reading of
anti-Sabbath literature, especially that prepared by Bible institutes, you may have noticed that the common
method of meeting the argument for the seventh-day Sabbath is by declaring that the law was done away. It
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is this antinomian argument that we meet most frequently. Evidently you do not believe this view, which,
of course, as you know, and as surely anyone who claims to have any knowledge of church history ought to
know, has been denounced as a heresy in Protestantism from the days of Luther onward.
Our Interpretation Ancient

You state that the fact that the Ten Commandments are our moral guide “does not strengthen the
position of Christians who keep Saturday as the Sabbath.” I conclude from this that you interpret the fourth
commandment as did the drafters of the Westminster Confession, who adopted the views of Nicholas
Bownde, that “the seventh day- means simply “one day in seven.” The limits of a letter do not permit me to
analyze what 1 believe are the patent fallacies and irrationalities that reside in this interpretation. Suffice it
to say here that such an interpretation of the plain words of the fourth command was never thought of until
3,000 years after the proclaiming of that command on Mount Sinai, for Nicholas Bownde lived at the end
of the sixteenth century of our Christian Era.
If the touchstone of orthodoxy be in any sense the antiquity of a belief, as Fundamentalists often
suggest by the very emphasis they place on the antithetical term Modernism, then certainly Adventists are
the truly orthodox ones in the matter of the Sabbath. 1 do not say myself that antiquity of interpretation is
necessarily the proof of its correctness. But when Adventists are so often charged with preaching new and
strange doctrines, it is surely pertinent for me to call attention to the historical aspect of our interpretation
of the Sabbath command.
Later in your letter you say: “I might add in connection with your comments on the Sunday School
Times lesson articles that the point about a command to keep the Sabbath being necessary for the Gentiles
was in view of the fact that none of the Gentiles kept the Sabbath day, while they all recognized the other
commands as obligatory,” Is there any evidence that the Gentile Christians never kept the seventh-day
Sabbath? Why is it not just as proper for the question to be put in this form?
Evidently your answer to the question would be Yes, for you have just stated that “none of the
Gentiles kept the Sabbath day.” How do you prove this? How are you sure what they did not do? Do you
prove it by what you believe to be the silence of Scripture concerning their keeping of the Sabbath? If so, I
wonder if you would be willing to allow the validity of the argument from silence in some other areas of
theological discussion.
Burden of Proof on Sunday Advocate

The whole burden of proof rests upon you in this matter. If you accept the premise that the Ten
Commandments are the Christian’s moral standard, then, unless you provide clear proof to the contrary, the
conclusion logically follows that the early Christians did keep the Sabbath. Furthermore, even if you could
produce contrary proof, which I am confident you cannot, the only logical conclusion then would be that
the Gentiles from the outset broke one of the Ten Commandments.
[The matter is presented in this brief form as a logical proposition because the limits of a letter
forbid the introduction of extensive historical evidence. Such evidence clearly reveals that Gentile
Christians kept the Sabbath very generally for a long period after New Testament times. After apostolic
days Sunday keeping gradually came in along with other apostate practices.]
Let us take the matter a little further. You say that “none of the Gentiles kept the Sabbath day,
while they all recognized the other commands as obligatory.” This is essentially the line of reasoning of
those who declare that the law was abolished at the cross, but that in some remarkable manner this law,
which evidently was so faulty and unnecessary as to call for abolition, found itself nine tenths restored in
the Christian dispensation. It is this process of reasoning that is employed by antinomians to escape the
charge of moral anarchy which is brought against them for their doctrine that the law was done away. Now,
I do not say that you subscribe to this. I simply say that your line of reasoning in this particular connection
runs parallel to theirs, and so far as I can discover, is here identical with it. But this is not the teaching of
the great Protestant creeds. If we are discussing the question of orthodoxy-and “heresy” is the blanket
charge against Adventists-then any teaching that the ten-commandment law was abolished at the cross is
heresy. Accordingly, Gentiles, in order to square with Protestant creeds, must recognize all ten
commandments “as obligatory.”
I might ask further: If the Gentiles did not consider the fourth commandment as obligatory, on
what, then, did they base the keeping of a weekly holy day, which you declare was Sunday? If you say they
based it simply on custom and the growing practice of the church, then you admit that there is no “Thus
said the Lord” behind Sunday. If you hesitate to make this admission, and I would not blame you for so
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hesitating in view of the thundering of American and English preachers through the years regarding the
awful sin of Sunday desecration, then I would ask you, In what text of Holy Writ do you find a “Thus said
the Lord” for Sunday? If you can find such a text, you have done better than any theologian before you. I
have open before me various theological books which admit frankly that there is no command for Sunday
keeping.
The Crux of the Matter

If you say, as you did in the Sunday school lessons, that in some way the spirit of the fourth
command still holds for those who live in the Christian Era, and therefore they should keep Sunday, 1
would ask you to elucidate on this point. It is the crux of the discussion. What is there so elusive about this
fourth command that we should be asked to view it only in some ghostly, transcendental form? Its language
is as plain and as vigorous as that of any other precept of the ten, so plain indeed that men had no difficulty,
and certainly no controversy, over the understanding of it for thousands of years. Who authorized you or
any other Christian minister, 1 ask with all good feeling, to deprive this one precept of the ten of its body
and substance?
If you really do believe that the law was done away at the cross, but that nine of the ten were
somehow restored, I insist that you give just as literal a resurrection to the fourth commandment if you are
going to invoke it in any way in support of a weekly holy day. Why not leave wholly to the Modernists the
vaporous doctrine of a spiritual resurrection? To my mind it is a curious thing, this Protestant reasoning, I
am tempted almost to say casuistry, that retains on the one side, in some shadowy form, the fourth
commandment, in order to have a “Thus said the Lord” foundation for their weekly holy day; and on the
other hand discards the fourth command as abolished, in order to break the force of the seventh-day
Sabbath argument.
Catholic Church More Frank

In this matter the Catholic Church is more honest, shall 1 say, than Protestantism; for it makes no
endeavor to defend Sunday by reasoning that “the seventh day” means only one day in seven. With all its
specious interpretations, Catholicism evidently thought this too unwarranted, in view of the unanimity of
interpretation for thousands of years. It frankly states in its catechisms that “the seventh day” is Saturday.
Then it defends Sunday on the ground that the church has a right to change laws and to institute holy days.
If we accepted this view of the power of the church, we could easily accept Sunday. But you and I are not
Catholics. We are Protestants.
I am not quite sure of your view. 1 concluded, from the first part of your letter, that you believed
unqualifiedly that the Ten Commandments-and of course the fourth must be present in order to make the
ten-are the moral standard for Gentile Christians. But the latter part of your letter, which declares that
Gentiles did not keep the Sabbath, “while they all recognized the other commands as obligatory,” throws
me into doubt as to your view.
Therefore, to clear the air, let me ask you directly: Do you believe that the Ten Commandments is
in full force, that it is the moral standard for us in the Christian dispensation? If you answer, “No,” we part
company right here, I standing with the great Protestant confessions and creeds, and you standing wherever
you wish. If you answer that you do believe the Ten Commandments to be our moral standard. I conclude,
by simple arithmetic, that you believe in the fourth along with the other nine.
Two Key Questions

Then I would ask you, By what process of reasoning, or rather, by what texts of Scripture do you
justify changing what was for thousands of years the one understanding of the meaning of this fourth
commandment as regards the day of worship and the purpose of the worship? In other words, How do you
prove that the phrase in the command, “the seventh day,” which until the sixteenth century A. D, was
understood by all to apply to the specific seventh day of the week, really refers to no day in particular,
merely to one day in seven? And how do you prove that this fourth command, which is based on a certain
historical fact, the creation, can be made to apply to another historical fact, the resurrection? Even when the
minds of Christians were becoming befogged by strange doctrines and reasoning in the early centuries, the
basic distinction between Sabbath and Sunday was evident to them, for the Sabbath was described as the
feast of creation, and Sunday as the feast of the resurrection.
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New Creation Depends on Old

Perhaps you will say on this second point that the resurrection is the memorial of a new creation,
and thus the fourth command applies. But in the articles enclosed with this letter, I have tried to show that
such reasoning, though plausible on the surface, is not valid. That the Christian needs to remember and to
have absolute belief in the historical creation, the event described in Genesis and quoted in the fourth
commandment, before he can have any faith in, or attach any significance to, the plan of salvation and the
work of Christ in the new creation.
Instead of the new creation’s eclipsing and taking the place of the historical creation, the simple
facts are that the new creation owes its significance to the literal, historical creation. Fundamentalists have
intoned sufficiently, I believe, on the primary necessity of a belief in the historical creation in Genesis as
the true foundation on which all Christian doctrine must rest, to make it unnecessary for me to amplify this
point here.
In asking you this series of questions I have no desire to take any unfair advantage of you by the
specious procedure of asking questions which a man should not be expected to answer. Instead, I think
these are the most relevant questions that could be raised. Let me repeat, the burden of proof in this whole
matter must rest upon you who believe in Sunday, not upon us who believe in the seventh-day Sabbath. We
represent the historic interpretation of the fourth commandment from time immemorial. We have never
changed our interpretation; we have seen no reason to do so. If words had one value and meaning in past
time, we see no reason why their meaning should be basically changed today. It is for you, of course, who
believe that there is a sufficient reason, and a Biblical reason at that, to produce that reason for us.
The fact that virtually the whole Christian world soon turned away from obedience to the fourth
command is surely no argument in itself that such a departure is justified. I am certain you would not put it
forth as a formal proposition, though it does seem to be the submerged premise in the reasoning of a great
majority of first-day keepers. But knowing, as I am certain you do know, how quickly there crept into the
church a great variety of false doctrines and perversions of true doctrines, which held virtually all
Christendom in their control for long centuries, I am sure that you will not ask me to accept any argument
for Sunday based on the early appearance of it in the church and its rapid and widespread adoption. It is not
in church practice but in Bible precept that we as Protestants must find the guide for our lives.
23. Are Adventists Legalists?

THE CHARGE is repeatedly and militantly brought against us as Seventh day Adventists that we
are legalists. In other words, that we depend on a keeping of the law instead of on the keeping power of
Christ, and thus point men to the law rather than to Christ. Now, this is a grave charge indeed. If it be true
that we substitute law for grace and our own frail powers for the divine power promised by Christ, then we
are entitled only to condemnation by all who love our Lord and Savior. In fact, if we substitute the law for
Christ we are not really Christians
Do we plead guilty to such charge? We do not. With all the vehemence at our command we
declare the charge to be false and unfounded. We insist that no fair reading of our teachings on the law
warrants any indictment of us as legalists. The only way that an appearance of a case against Adventists has
been produced is by taking stray passages here and there from the rather numerous denominational works
and giving to them an interpretation wholly unwarranted and alien to the general tenor of Adventist
writings on the subject.
What our critics do not seem to realize is that by such a method of presenting evidence the Bible
writers may also be proved legalists. James declares, "By works a man is justified, and not by faith only."
James 2:24. What a dreadful legalist was James! If Adventists belong outside the pale of Christendom, then
where does James belong? In all our history we have never written anything quite so vigorous as this in
behalf of good works. Or what shall we say of the answer that our Lord gave to the rich young man who
asked of Him the way to life eternal: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments"? Matthew
19:17.
But let us take the possibilities of stray passages a little further. By picking out the desired texts
our critics could prove various Bible writers to be not only legalists but opponents of all sound religion.
Does not Paul make reference to being baptized for the dead (1 Corinthians 15:29)? And have not his words
been plausibly used by those who believe in the efficacy of prayers for the dead? Does not Isaiah attribute
to God the declaration, "I make peace, and create evil"? Isaiah 45:7. And have not skeptics pointed to
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Isaiah's statement in scorn? Again, what shall we say of our Lord's word to His apostles: 'Who so ever sins
you remit, they are remitted"? John 20:23. Do not Roman Catholics quote this text with great plausibility
and persuasiveness in behalf of the doctrine of priestly absolution?
Now, in their zeal to ferret out false doctrine, do our critics indict these Bible authors? For
illustration, do they indict James? Why let him escape the denunciation that ought to come upon the head of
all legalists? Luther did not. The great Reformer, who was dazzled by the light of the doctrine of
justification by faith, could see in the epistle of James only a contradiction of that doctrine and wished to
dismiss the letter as "an epistle of straw." Hence, our critics would have good Protestant precedent for their
attack on James.
Inconsistent Critics
But they are not consistent. They refuse to attack any Bible writer in regard to particular passages
that might seem to contradict the main tenor of Scripture and the beliefs of Christians. When skeptics point
to apparently questionable texts and alleged contradictions, our critics, who generally belong to the
conservative wing of Christendom, are the most vehement in crying out against what they declare are the
unfair tactics of skeptics in lifting stray passages out of their context. They insist that a particular text in
question shall be understood in the setting of all the Scriptures, and that other and clearer texts shall be the
guide for interpreting a text that seems obscure or contradictory to the main teachings of the Bible.
No Attack on James
Specifically, our critics refuse to indict James. They do not think that he wrote an epistle of straw.
They would not thus attack a part of the canon of Holy Scripture. They would be horrified at the thought. If
anything, they would attack Luther, or perhaps we should say they would explain away Luther's remark on
the ground that he was just coming out of the darkness of Catholicism. And had not yet discovered the
higher harmony that exists between apparently contradictory Scriptures on the important subject of faith
and good works.
And of course our critics would be right in taking that position with regard to the Scriptures in
general and the Epistle of James in particular. Picking out stray passages in the Bible is no proper way to
discover the true teachings of the Bible. And the person who does this and who goes on from this to pit one
text against another, is rightly open to grave suspicion that he is approaching the Scriptures from a
prejudiced viewpoint, seeking to make out a case against them.
If all this be true as regards the writings of the Scriptures, and it is then why is it not also true as
regards other writings? It is. Including even the writings of Seventh day Adventists? Why not? But
evidently our critics are not willing to concede this principle in relation to Adventist writings. If they did
they would immediately have to withdraw all the charges they have made against us as legalists.
Let Us Examine the Record

With no irreverence to the Bible writers, it may he stated as a simple matter of fact that it would be
much easier for Seventh day Adventists to prove, in terms of their writings, that they believe wholly and
only in the unmerited grace of Christ for their salvation, than for James to do so from his writings. And
why? Because it probably never occurred to James, after he had written his most helpful, practical epistle,
to follow it with any general statement of belief, particularly on the matter of law and grace, in order to
escape misunderstanding. He took for granted that the Christian believers, to whom had been preached the
grace of Christ, would interpret his epistle aright. God gave him words to say in the epistle regarding the
place of works, and he let the matter stand at that.
Seventh day Adventists have not done this. We have taken care to place ourselves on record in a
formal way regarding our belief as to law and grace, along with our belief on other doctrines. Besides,
different Adventist authors have written whole books devoted to the theme. Those books set forth the truth
that the Christian is wholly dependent on Christ. These works are easily available to all. Surely our critics
must have found them, for they give evidence of having combed Adventist works with sedulous care in
order to come up with a stray phrase here and there from them.
Surely they must have seen the book Steps to Christ, by Mrs. E. G. White, a book that has had
probably a larger circulation than almost any other of our works. And it is Mrs. White that our critics
desire, if possible, to quote, because they know that we view her as speaking with authority for us. How
anyone could frame more clearly the doctrine of complete dependence upon Christ for forgiveness of past
sins and for strength to lead a godly life until the day of our Lord's return than Mrs. White has framed in
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that book, we know not. This much we do know; our critics, in all their writings, have never outdone this
book in ascribing to Christ all honor, all power, as the only source of the sinner's deliverance from sin and
the Christian's growth in grace.
Mrs. White's Life of Christ

Or take, for illustration, another book by Mrs. E. G. White, The Desire of Ages. In which she tells
the story of our Lord's life on earth, of His dying for our sins, of His being raised again for our justification,
and of His ascending to heaven above to minister on our behalf at the right hand of God. Have any of our
critics written a work that raises Christ to greater heights or makes Him more indispensable to the sinner
and to the saint in the plan of salvation than has this work? The answer is No. We say this, not out of any
disparagement of the writings of our critics, but out of a calm conviction that they simply have not attained
unto the heights of exultant declaration of Christ's place in the plan of salvation that Mrs. White has
attained.
But Mrs. White is not the only Adventist writer on this subject. Many of our authors have written
on it. And numerous times they have taken occasion to refute the false charges that we are legalists. They
have been explicit in their declarations that we rely wholly and only on Christ for our salvation. It would
take altogether too much space to cite the array of references that could here be given, and surely there is
no need, for again we say, our critics could not have failed to find at least a portion of these writings and
these explicit statements in combing our works. However, in order to keep the record straight, here are a
few typical statements from Adventist authors who have also been leaders in the denomination, and thus
may rightly be viewed as reflecting the theological views of the denomination.
Testimony of Various Leaders

These statements might be viewed in the form of testimony offered by witnesses on a question at
issue. The question is, What do Adventists believe to be the means of salvation? A. G. Daniells, who served
as president of the General Conference for twenty-one years, will be the first to testify. He wrote a book
entitled Christ Our Righteousness. Following are typical sentences:
"It is through faith in the blood of Christ that all the sins of the believer are canceled and the
righteousness of God is put in their place to the believer's account.... He yields, repents, confesses, and by
faith claims Christ as his Savior. The instant that is done, he is accepted as a child of God. His sins are all
forgiven, his guilt is canceled, he is accounted righteous, and stands approved, justified, before the divine
law. And this amazing, miraculous change may take place in one short hour. This is righteousness by faith."
- Pages 22, 23.
Next is the testimony of William A. Spicer, who, first as secretary and then as president of the
General Conference, served in key places in the church for many, many years. Speaking of the white
raiment mentioned in the book of the Revelation, he says:
"This white raiment is the righteousness of Christ, received by faith. Not by any works that we can do to
cleanse ourselves from sin, but by His own grace He cleanses us, and clothes us with His own
righteousness." - Beacon Lights of Prophecy, p. 193.
Take now the testimony of Charles H. Watson, who was president of the General Conference for
six years:
"He [Paul] also makes clear that a man, upon repentance and faith in Christ, pleading the Savior's
blood for the remission of his sins, and before he has wrought a single act of obedience to the law, is
justified by his faith....
"This righteousness is a-gift. We cannot earn it. We cannot claim it by any natural right that we
have, but, thank God, we can accept it in all its blessed fullness by faith in the atoning blood of Jesus. There
is absolutely no doubt that the blood of the atonement is the means by which faith secures justification." -
The Atoning Work of Christ, pp. 46-48.
Here is the testimony of William H. Branson, who has long held key administrative positions in
the denomination and who is now its president:
"We are not asked to try to win salvation by some effort on our part but to accept it as a gift from God. We
are not saved by anything we may do for God but by what He does for us. Jesus saves, and apart from Him
there is no salvation. "-How Men Are Saved, p. 27.
And here is the testimony of Francis M. Wilcox, for more than thirty years editor of The Review
and Herald, which is the general church paper of Seventh day Adventists:
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"To justify is to make righteous, to make equal to the divine standard. As the penitent confesses
his sins and lays hold of Christ's atoning sacrifice in his behalf, there is imputed to him. For all his past life,
the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that when God looks upon the past years of unrighteousness,
He sees no longer a life filled with crime and iniquity. But He sees the spotless life of the Son of God that
has been put in the place of the life of the believer. Thus the man stands in God's sight as though he had
never committed iniquity."-Review and Herald, Centennial Issue, Oct. 19, 1944, pp. 15, 16.
For good measure here is one further quotation. This from Harold M. S. Richards, radio preacher
of the Voice of Prophecy program, a nationwide broadcast that has been conducted for years under the
sponsorship of the Seventh day Adventist denomination:
"Christ died for us; Christ lives in us by His Spirit. So we belong to Him, and our salvation
depends upon Him-wholly and entirely. Our obedience to God's law, then, is not to be saved, but because
we are saved. It is not of our doing, but of His doing. 'Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God bath before ordained that we should
walk in them.' Ephesians 2:9, 10."-Radio Script, "The Law and the Gospel," p. 3, broadcast Dec. 9, 1945,
over Mutual network.
These testimonies hardly call for comment, unless it be the inquiry: Who is better qualified to state
what Adventists believe these witnesses or our critics?
Official Statement of Belief

But there is even more impressive and if possible more unequivocal testimony that can be
presented than that of these individual leaders and spokesmen for Seventh day Adventists. There is the
Statement of Belief that appears in the official Yearbook of the denomination. Adventists have never
sought to formulate a creed in the historic meaning of that word. We have hesitated to crystallize in too
rigid a form our understanding of the Scriptures, lest we fall into the error of refusing to go beyond our first
formulated creed to any better, clearer, or more correct understanding of the Scriptures.
But we have on occasions set forth what we describe as a Statement of Belief. There have been at
least two such prepared during the history of this denomination. They are in no essential point contrary one
to the other. They differ rather in phrasing and thus in length. The latter one, which has appeared in the
official Yearbook for a number of years, and which is found unchanged in the latest edition, for all to read,
devotes sections 3-8 to the subject of Christ and the sinner, the law and grace. As those sections state, we
believe-
"3. That Jesus Christ is very God, being of the same nature and essence as the Eternal Father.
While retaining His divine nature He took upon Himself the nature of the human family, lived on the earth
as a man, exemplified in His life as our Example the principles of righteousness. Attested His relationship
to God by many mighty miracles, died for our sins on the cross, was raised from the dead, and ascended to
the Father, where He ever lives to make intercession for us. John 1: 1,14; Hebrews 2:9-18; 8:1,2; 4:14-16;
7:25.
"4. That every person in order to obtain salvation must experience the new birth; that this
comprises an entire transformation of life and character by the re-creative power of God through faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. John 3:16; Matthew 18:3; Acts 2:37-39.
"S. That baptism is an ordinance of the Christian church and should follow repentance and
forgiveness of sins. By its observance faith is shown in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That
the proper form of baptism is by immersion. Romans 6:1-6; Acts 16:30-33.
"6. That the will of God as it relates to moral conduct is comprehended in His law of Ten
Commandments; that these are great moral, unchangeable precepts, binding upon all men, in every age.
Exodus 20:1-17.
"7. That the fourth commandment of this unchangeable law requires the observance of the seventh
day Sabbath. This holy institution is at the same time a memorial of creation and a sign of sanctification, a
sign of the believer's rest from his own works of sin, and his entrance into the rest of soul which Jesus
promises to those who come to Him. Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; 31:12-17; Hebrews 4:1-10.
'8. That the law of Ten Commandments points out sin, the penalty of which is death. The law
cannot save the transgressor from his sin, nor impart power to keep him from sinning. In infinite love and
mercy, God provides a way whereby this may be done. He furnishes a substitute, even Christ the Righteous
One, to die in man's stead, making 'Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the
righteousness of God in Him.' 2 Corinthians 5:21. That one is justified, not by obedience to the law, but by
the grace that is in Christ Jesus. By accepting Christ, man is reconciled to God, justified by His blood for
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the sins of the past, and saved from the power of sin by His indwelling life. Thus the gospel becomes 'the
power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes.' Romans 1:16. This experience is wrought by the
divine agency of the Holy Spirit, who convinces of sin and leads to. the Sin-Bearer, inducting the believer
into the new-covenant relationship, where the law of God is written on his heart, and through the enabling
power of the indwelling Christ, his life is brought into conformity to the divine precepts. The honor and
merit of this wonderful transformation belong wholly to Christ. 1 John 2:1,2; 3:4; Romans 3:20; 5:8-10;
7:7; Ephesians 2:8-10; 3:17; Galatians 2:20; Hebrews 8:8-12."-Yearbook of the Seventh day Adventist
Denomination, 1946, p. 4.
The Crux of the Matter

Here, then, is what we believe on the subject of law and grace, Christ and the sinner, as set forth in
the writings of various of our leaders and in our Statement of Belief. In the latter we have set forth, even as
other churches have set forth in their creeds, our view on this doctrine of the law in the most explicit and
the most authoritative way that it is possible for us to do. And ought we not to be credited with knowing
what we believe? That is finally the crux of the matter. That is the heart of the controversy that we have
with our critics who accuse us of legalism.
We are certain that our critics would rise up in wrath if we charged that they really did not know
what they believed, that they could not safely be allowed to interpret their own writings and resolve
apparent contradictions in them. Or that a statement of belief they might formulate should not be taken at
face value but should be ignored in favor of stray passages in the writings of different members of their
religious persuasion. If we made such a charge against them they would consider it an insult to their
intelligence, an indictment of their honesty, an accusation of duplicity and hypocrisy. And well they might.
But we bring no such charge against them. We believe that our critics are able to state what their
beliefs are. We grant that they should be allowed to harmonize any apparent contradictions in other of their
writings with the formal, carefully phrased words in their official statement of doctrine. We would do this
for any critic, any opponent. We know that the limitations of language are such that it is easily possible to
create apparent contradictions where no real contradictions exist, and to make an emphasis on one doctrine
appear to be a denial of another.
When we want to know what any religious body believes, we seek first to discover whether they
have prepared a formal statement of belief, and if so we take that as being their official belief on doctrine.
And why not? What would be the point to any religious body's formulating a creed unless it would be
accepted by those who read it as being a correct statement of the doctrinal views of that religious body?
Now what we concede to others, our critics included, we claim also for ourselves. Why not? Are
we less able to express our thoughts in a formal statement of belief than are all other Christian people? Do
we, in contrast to all other Christian bodies, not really know what we believe and hence use words with no
true meaning? Or is it possible that our critics would claim that they need not concede to us what we
willingly concede to them and to all others, namely that their official statements of belief are the honest
expression of their doctrines. Unless they are prepared to set forth and support the charge that we employ
duplicity in words, they have no defense whatever for the tactics they follow in ignoring our Statement of
Belief and citing stray passages here and there in our writings to prove a case against us.
But the charge that either we do not know what we mean by what we say or we conceal our
meanings, would be a new argument indeed. We hardly think that at this late date our critics will seek to
prove true such a monstrous charge as this. If the star of Adventism had appeared in the religious sky only
yesterday, bursting suddenly on the vision of men with blinding light, our critics might plausibly say that
Adventism was not really what it appeared to be. That the statements of its spokesmen needed to be tested
against time and the outworking of the beliefs. But Adventism did not burst suddenly upon the sight of men
just yesterday. Instead, it rose slowly from the New England horizon, casting ever longer rays as the years
have rolled on, until today the light of Advent teachings shines in every land. We have been preaching,
writing, conducting church services, in an increasing number of languages for a century. The real meaning
of our teachings has been revealed in our religions services week by week, and in the lives of our members
day by day, for three generations.
And what do these years reveal? Do they reveal instances of Seventh day Adventist ministers
conducting revival services in the evangelistic sense of the word, calling on men to accept Christ? Yes. In
our churches and in our annual camp meetings, year after year, appeals are made directly to the hearts of
men and women, young and old, to accept Jesus Christ and to accept Him as their only Savior from sin and
their only spiritual Sustainer and Source of life for the future. Strange that our critics never seem to be
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aware of these revival services we conduct. There is nothing secret about them. Public notices in the press
invite all to come to our large camp meetings. If we conducted these revival services on a legalistic basis, if
we failed to exalt Jesus Christ, is it reasonable to believe that our critics would have overlooked this
contrast?
Adventist Pastoral Visitation

And what have Adventist pastors done through the years when visiting church members? Have
they carried along a scroll of the Ten Commandments and consumed the time of the pastoral visit in asking
the family whether they have kept the law, assuring them that if they will keep on trying they will probably
succeed in keeping those commands, but that if they fail they will be in a very sad state? This question is
not posed to provoke a smile from our Adventist readers. The matter is too serious for that.
Yes, what do Adventist pastors say or do when they visit the homes of their church members?
Speaking personally, I have never taken a scroll of the law to any home, nor pleaded with parishioners to
try harder to keep the law, nor warned them of the terrors of ultimate hell-fire if they failed. I rather took
for granted that those who have accepted Christ have the law written in their hearts, which is the promise of
the new covenant. Presuming this,
I spent my time in talking of the promises of God, the goodness of the Lord, His forgiving grace
for sins confessed, His proffered power for victory in the future. And I ended each pastoral visit with a
prayer to God through Jesus Christ, laying claim to all these promises, most particularly to the promise that
Christ will dwell in our hearts by faith and live out through us all the principles of heaven, including all His
divine laws.
And has there been anything unusual in my pastoral visitation? No. I have done simply what every
other Adventist minister does. Would our critics suggest some other course for us to follow in order to be in
harmony with good Christian practices and beliefs? I think not.
Our Attack on Enslaving Habits

And what do we say to someone who comes to us for freedom from slavery to an evil habit like
drink or tobacco? Do we simply urge him to try to keep the law of God, adding that we trust he will secure
victory over his evil habit, but that if he fails there is only damnation ahead for him? Is it possible that we
say such a thing as this? Well, our critics charge that we are legalists; hence, this is what we should be
expected to say. But do we really? No! We point the poor slave of evil habits to our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ. To whom else could we point him? And we pray for his deliverance through Christ.
Now, it is a fact that tens of thousands of those who seek admittance to the Adventist Church are
troubled with some such habit as tobacco or liquor. Yet they all secure victory over these habits, for no
Seventh day Adventist smokes or drinks. Here, then, is an amazing fact. The habits of smoking and
drinking have a fearful grip on most of their devotees, as many of them can testify. Yet those coming into
the Adventist Church gain complete and generally rather sudden victory over these habits. Have Seventh
day Adventists found an immediate and ever-dependable source of power that other Christian people
through all the years have not known?
But why press this point further? Is it not evident that we have in this amazing phenomenon of a
whole membership free from the enslaving habits of drink and tobacco, and even worse habits in heathen
lands, the clearest proofs that Adventists rely on the one and only Source of help, Jesus Christ our Lord?
Why Not Take a Poll?

Here is a suggestion for you who are critics, a suggestion which, if followed out, could once and
for all settle this question of whether Adventists are legalists or not. Here is a chance for you to put your
charge to an honest test. Take a poll of a cross section of the rank and file of Seventh day Adventist
laymen. Exclude all Adventist preachers, who according to you either do not know what they preach and
teach or else have a conspiracy to conceal the meaning of their teachings. Go instead to the homes of
humble laymen, who must seek to make religion work in their everyday lives, and whose sincerity and
loyalty to Seventh day Adventist beliefs is evidenced by their amazing liberality, which is probably the
highest in the religious world.
Go with your notebook in hand and ask those laymen: "Do you rely on the keeping of the law to
save you?" "Do you turn your back on Christ as the one and only Savior from past sins and the only Source
of power for holy living?" Or ask any variation of these questions in order to make sure that you are
framing to your satisfaction your charge that Adventists are legalists.
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It is clear what the answer would be. First, there would be a look of bewilderment, then
amazement, then indignation, followed probably either by a vehement denial or else a vigorous inquiry as
to how you ever came to ask such a question. This would be the response whether the question was asked
of an Adventist layman in America, in China, in Africa, or in the islands of the sea.
Of course our critics may wish to challenge this statement, but we shall not listen to them until
they have produced the findings from their poll of Adventist homes. We know they will not risk such a
poll.
On the other hand, they will hardly attempt to minimize the force of this suggestion of a poll by
declaring that Adventist laymen do not really know what their denomination teaches. It is no exaggeration
to state that the average Seventh day Adventist probably has more of his church's literature in his home than
members of any other Protestant body. And if our critics doubt whether he knows what Adventists believe,
it must be because they have never given him an opportunity to set forth those beliefs!
Now, here is a singular phenomenon. The ordinary Adventist is layman who listens to his pastor
week by week and who reads Adventist literature constantly, fails entirely to discover the allegedly Christ-
denying character of Adventist theology. And hence he prays to God through Christ daily and relies on the
saving grace of his Lord for holy living and victory over temptation. Truly a phenomenon!
Yes, We Magnify the Law

At this point our critics may say defensively: "But you Seventh day Adventists have to admit you
preach the law. You weave it into your whole theology in such a way that the reader meets it repeatedly.
You preach on it in your lectures to the public. You extol the law. You magnify it. You even say Christians
should keep the law." Strictly speaking, it is sufficient to say in reply that whatever we may write or preach
about the law, our church members who listen to such preaching return home to rely wholly on Christ.
Therefore our law preaching cannot be displacing Christ. Furthermore, what we weave into our writings
and sermons concerning the law is rightly to be understood in terms of our formal statement of belief.
But let us examine this statement of our critics a little further. Yes, we weave the law all through
our theology. So does the Bible, from first to last. The Old Testament says much about the law and
obedience to it. Everyone grants that. The New Testament also says much about obedience to the
commandments of God. Indeed, the very last book of the Bible describes the company of those ready for
the second i coming of Christ as men and women who "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of
Jesus." Revelation 14:12. And in the version of the Bible which all of us have read from childhood, there is
found in the last chapter, almost as a closing benediction to Scripture, this blessing. “Blessed are they that
do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into
the city." Revelation 22:14.
The Apostles Extolled the Law

Yes, we extol the law. We magnify it. But so did the holy apostles and so did our Lord. Paul
declared, "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. For we know that the
law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin." Romans 7:12, 14. Wrote the apostle John: "By this we
know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the
love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:2, 3.
Of Christ the prophet Isaiah foretold: “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will
magnify the law, and make it honorable." Isaiah 42:21. The fulfillment of this prophecy we find most
clearly in Christ's sermon on the mount, in which He showed how comprehensive are the commandments
against murder and adultery.
Yes, we extol the law, we magnify it, believing that we have every Scriptural precedent for so
doing. Indeed, we would magnify it in the very words of Scripture. Nor have we been unique in this matter.
We cannot claim any distinction by comparison with great Protestant bodies in this matter of exalting the
law of God. The person who reads the creeds of the great Protestant bodies would almost conclude at times
that Adventists have been outdone by them in this matter of vigorous declarations concerning the
significance of the law of God. But our critics, in charging us with legalism, have clearly sought to imply,
when they have not openly charged, that our belief on the law is an unorthodox one, alien to the belief held
by the great body of Protestant Christians. But reference to the preceding chapter, "The Law of God in
Church Creeds,” will reveal that this is not so.
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In What Way Do We Differ?

Will our critics please lay alongside the Protestant confessions of faith, the formal Adventist
statement on law and grace that was quoted from the Adventist Yearbook, and tell us in what way our
statement differs from the classic creedal declarations of Protestantism? We are unable to discover any
difference in spirit or in doctrine taught.
More than that, we are unable to discover any practical difference between our view of the law and
that of present-day spokesmen for leading Protestant bodies. In the year 1932 the International Uniform
Sunday School Lessons dealt with the subject of the Ten Commandments on the Sundays of August 7 and
14. Various church papers carried these lessons and offered their own comments on them. But those
comments sound wholly alien to the statements made concerning the Ten Commandments by our critics,
who declare that the law has been abolished, and the Adventists are legalists.
Sunday School Times Testifies

For example, here is what The Sunday School Times said in part in its comment on the Sunday
school lessons on the Ten Commandments:
"To know God is to love God. The commandments were given that men might know Jehovah
God, the God of love and the God of holiness. To love God is to obey Him. God's law is an expression of
God's love. The fearful thunders and fire and shaking of Sinai', so dreadful that Moses said, 'I exceedingly
fear and quake' (Hebrews 12:21), were to reveal the greatness and glory of God, that they might truly fear
and reverence Him.... The law is spiritual, and can be kept only in spirit and in truth. Israel 'continued not'
in this covenant, and God made a new covenant, not changing the laws, but blotting out their sins, and
writing these same laws on their heart. Hebrews 8:8-13. To have faith in the God of mercy and love is to
have the righteousness of Abraham, and of Moses, and the heart of love to God to keep these
commandments, by His grace." - July 23, 1932.
Presbyterian Paper Speaks

In The Presbyterian is found this comment: "The Ten Commandments are not only precepts of
God, but also a description of the nature of God, and His desire for man, that man may be like God. The
Lord Jehovah, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the kind of Deity described in these ten words, or oracles,
or commandments. Behind them stands the Being of God, and preliminary to them stands the exodus, the
Passover, the remembrance. Paul recognized the underlying connection between law and grace when he
wrote: 'I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,
acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' Romans 12: 1. The word 'therefore' looks backward
at the great chapters before the twelfth. The law is a paragraph in a covenant of grace. It is indeed a 'law of
liberty.' "-July 28, 1932.
The Watchman-Examiner, one of the most influential weeklies in the Baptist denomination,
contains in its comments on the Sunday school lessons this statement:
“Christ taught His disciples, and all who followed His teachings, that we may have eternal life by
keeping perfectly the law as given by God on Sinai, and by loving Him who is the embodiment and the
fulfillment of that law." - August 4, 1932.
The Moody Monthly Testifies

Church papers contain many statements on the law, in addition to those quoted in connection with
the Sunday school lessons. Take, for example, a series of articles that was printed in the Moody Bible
Institute Monthly under the head "Are Christians Freed From the Law?" The series begins with various
definitions of law and presents three distinct codes: "the civil law," "the ceremonial law,” and "the moral
law." Focusing on the moral law, the writer of the series says in his first article, "Let us now see how the
moral law is emphasized, enlarged, and enforced in all its details in the New Testament." He shows how
Christ and the apostles dealt with it:
"So far from annulling any of the Ten Commandments, He [Christ] amplified their scope, teaching
that an angry thought or bitter word violated the sixth, and a lustful look the seventh.
"The teaching of the apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is even more emphatic and
explicit concerning the scope and obligations of the moral law." - October, 1933. Then follows a list of
New Testament references to show how the apostles honored each of the Ten Commandments.
The second article deals with the "relationship between the law and the gospel," and "the
Christian's true position with regard to the law of God as revealed on Sinai and his plain duty concerning
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it." The author explains immediately that "we must distinguish carefully and clearly between its two chief
parts, the ceremonial and the moral law." A little further on he declares, "Christians are utterly to discard
reliance on their observance of the moral law as any means of their justification." But he adds shortly:
"Christians are carefully to observe the moral law as the rule and method of their sanctification,
and the guide of their new life.... The fact of their redemption does not do, away with the necessity of their
obedience; it only makes the obligation stronger, and heightens their responsibility." - November, 1933.
Sunday School Times Again

An editorial in The Sunday School Times entitled "Are Christians Under the Law?" sets forth
these clear distinctions between ceremonial and moral codes:
"Christ fulfilled and thereby canceled forever every jot and tittle of the Ceremonial Law. The
Moral Law, which was given to Moses by God on the two tables of stone.... Christ found overlaid with
traditional, legalistic rules and observances of merit-seeking. He rebuked the sham and corruption of this
false system, and by His teaching and example canceled these 'commandments of men.”
'Paul's argument against 'the law' was aimed at this rabbinical code; and at the continuance of the
ceremonial law which Christ's redemptive work had canceled." - April 21, 1934. Continuing the theme in
the next week's issue, The Sunday School Times declares:
While obedience without the impulsion of love is servility, love that does not issue in obedience is
merely nominal. 'He that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not
in him' (1 John 2:4).
"Love and obedience are interchangeable, and incontrovertible ground of our assurance: 'Hereby
we do know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.' "-April 28, 1934.
Our One Distinctive View on the Law

There is really only one difference between us and Protestants in general regarding the law. We
understand the fourth commandment differently. We believe that the phrase the seventh day means the
seventh day of the weekly cycle. And so did everyone else, until the end of the sixteenth century, when
Nicholas Bowncle developed the idea that the phrase meant simply one day in seven, and thus provided
Puritan reformers with an apparent Scriptural support for Sunday keeping. (See chapter 7) If our critics
wish to prefer charges against us for failure to adopt a relatively new interpretation of a Scriptural phrase,
we are ready to answer the charge with this simple inquiry. Why should we he asked to accept a new
interpretation when the holy prophets and the apostles all understood the words the seventh day to mean the
seventh day of the week? The holy women who rested on the day between crucifixion Friday and
resurrection Sunday "rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment." Luke 23:56.
But even though our critics have to agree that our interpretation is anchored to history and the
prophets, they seem still to be sure there must be something spiritually off-color, legalistic, in our keeping
of the seventh day of the week. And particularly in our calling upon others to keep the seventh day Sabbath.
We may make impassioned appeal to the licentious man to flee from the wrath to come upon the head of all
who violate the seventh command. We may do the same in regard to the thief, the liar, the murderer, the
covetous man, the parent-dishonoring child, the blasphemer, and the idolater. To each we may say that his
life is a violation of the law of God, which is binding on all men in all ages. To each we may appeal to
implore God for forgiveness and for a new heart on which is written the law by the miraculous work of the
Divine Spirit. Have not all great evangelists done this? Did not Dwight L. Moody preach a whole series of
revival sermons on the Ten Commandments? (Later printed under the title Weighed and Wanting.)
Yes, we may do all this and be considered orthodox in the matter of law and grace. But let us
include in our appeal to men the fourth commandment, and a storm breaks around our heads. Moody
included the fourth command in his fervent series on the Ten Commandments. But no storm broke over
him. No one accused him of legalism, of setting up another standard for salvation than Jesus Christ. But
then Moody did not call on men to keep the "Sabbath day according to the commandment"; he called on
them to keep holy the first day of the week!
A Strange Situation
Here is a strange situation indeed. It is even more strange when viewed in the setting of the fact
that legalism is often directly involved in the urge that is put on people to keep Sunday. Have not our critics
heard of Sunday laws that have been put on the statute books by ardent preachers, and vigorously invoked
by them? Just why we who invoke only the grace of God to enable man to obey the command to keep holy
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the seventh day, should be charged as legalists, while the hosts of Sunday keeping ministers, who often
invoke the strong arm of the law in order to compel men to rest on the first day of the week, should claim to
be the exponents of grace, is surely a strange contradiction. Seventh day Adventists have ever been
vigorous opponents of the idea of approaching Sabbath rest from the legal standpoint, whereas Sunday
keeping preachers are the ones who have lobbied almost every legislative body in Christian lands into
enacting strong laws to protect Sunday! We who are Seventh day Adventists must suffer the constant
strictures of a large majority of the Sunday keeping ministry for our refusal to support their program of
Sunday legislation. They declare that we are in league with the lawless element, who want an open Sunday.
But whenever we urge the keeping of the seventh day Sabbath, and invoke the law of God, some of those
same ministers cry out that we are legalists! Why the difference?
A Situation Still More Strange

To repeat the question asked earlier in this book, for it bears repeating. Just what is there about
preaching first-day sacredness from the fourth commandment, as Protestant denominations in general have
done through all the years, that transports such preachers to the balmy paradise of grace, whereas the
preaching of seventh day sacredness from the same fourth commandment consigns such preachers to the
chill limbo of legalism? We who preach seventh day sacredness certainly do not do so more sternly and
rigorously than first-day preachers. Even a cursory acquaintance with Protestant history reveals that Sunday
sacredness has quite frequently been proclaimed with a severity that frightened into conformity the majority
and thrust into jail the remainder. If today there is a certain relaxation of this severity, it certainly does not
reflect any fundamental difference of view toward the first day by religious leaders, for they bemoan the
laxity that has crept in.
Perhaps some of our critics will say that they do not believe in this view of first-day sacredness.
But that is surely not to the point. The charge of legalism is made by critics who represent a variety of
Protestant bodies, which bodies have been parties to Sunday legislation. We therefore return to the
question: Why is it a display of grace and faith to preach first-day sacredness from the Ten
Commandments, but a non-Christian display of legalism to preach seventh day sacredness from the same
law?
In substance, we are charged as being "heretical" because of our beliefs on the law in general and
the fourth precept in particular. The question is: Wherein does the heresy lie? In our view of the law in
general, that it is God's unchangeable code for all men in all ages? No, for we declare our complete
harmony with the classic confessions of faith on this point. Is it because of our view of the fourth precept in
particular? And if so, why, in view of the facts presented in the preceding paragraphs?
Some time ago I fell into conversation with a Baptist minister. He deplored the Modernist-
Fundamentalist controversy that was shattering his denomination. He said he judged that every
denomination was thus troubled, however. I replied that ours was not. He marveled. No marvel, I said; the
explanation is simple. Seventh day Adventists could not possibly be evolutionists, for we keep the seventh
day of the weekly cycle as a memorial of the completion of God's creative work in the first week of time.
We keep this day holy because "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and rested the seventh day."
When we rest on the seventh day, we think of Him who rested on that day and blessed it. Ever
remembering the Sabbath, we cannot forget creation. And ever believing in the Sabbath, we must ever
believe in creation. We think rather of Eden than of Sinai when we keep the Sabbath.
The complete freedom from Modernism in the Seventh day Adventist denomination, even in its
colleges, is an eloquent proof of the truth of what we here claim regarding the Sabbath. Yet, behold, this
Sabbath doctrine, which is our strong bulwark against Modernism, proves to be part of the reason for a
withering indictment of us by Fundamentalists, in whose ranks our critics are generally found.
How Valid Is the Testimony of an Ex-Adventist?

Have our critics any further evidence they wish to present to support their charge that Adventists
are legalists? Yes, one more bit of evidence, the testimony of certain men who have gone from us. A few
men after leaving us have declared that they have been "delivered from Adventism," meaning most
generally and most specifically that they have been delivered from a legalistic religion and are now
rejoicing in the glorious liberty of the gospel.
Now, no testimony is accepted in any court without a cross examination of the witness. Here are
some questions we, as Adventists, would like to ask an ex-Adventist witness testifying for our critics.
Would you please tell us precisely what teaching of the Adventist Church in the matter of the law of God
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bound and fettered you, and what different view do you now hold on the law that gives you such glorious
liberty? To what great Protestant creed or profession of faith do you point as containing your present view,
or have you moved outside of all the historic creeds in order to find your present belief on the law?
If the witness answers that he was delivered from the Adventist teaching that the law of God is
binding on all men in all ages as an expression of the great moral principles of God, then we would ask him
to show us in what way this Adventist teaching is different from the Protestant creeds. This he could not do,
for our teaching is identical with that of the great Protestant bodies. If the witness then declared that he had
moved beyond these historic creeds, we would ask him, Who has departed from the faith? Who has turned
his back on the Protestant teaching on the law-he, or Adventists?
If lie answers that the Adventist teaching on the law had kept him from looking to Christ, we
would ask him to be very specific in citing his proof. For reasons already stated we would not accept as
valid evidence some stray phrases or sentences that appeared to support the charge of legalism that ran
counter to the explicit words of the Adventist Statement of Belief and the whole tenor of our teachings. We
would not do this for the same reason that we would not accept a stray statement from James or any other
Bible writer that might be submitted by a Catholic in behalf of the doctrine of works. We would ask the
witness whether he had ever been called upon by the Adventist Church to preach any other view of the law
than that set down in our Statement of Belief. His answer would have to be No.
We would also consider it proper to call to his attention the statement lie made to his employing
conference when he withdrew from the Adventist ministry. I do not recall during my years of ministry of
any preacher who has gone out from us declaring, as he did so, that he was leaving in order to be free from
the shackles of legalism. Of course, there may have been such a case. I can only speak from memory.
However, I need not strain my memory unduly, for only a few ministers have left the denomination. In
most instances those who have left have done so at the request of their brethren and because of a moral fall.
It is certainly disclosing no secret to say this. Adventists are still flesh and blood, and can fall before
temptation the same as all others if they give ear to the tempter.
Of this sad, but fortunately very small, number who have had to leave our Adventist ministry
under a cloud, I can recall two who took to preaching on their own or in some loose affiliation with another
religious body, and who declared from the public platform that they had been delivered from the legalism
of Adventism and now were rejoicing in the free grace of God!
This observation is made in no cynical vein and with no attempt merely to prove a case, but only
to relate simple facts of history, current history that is known and can be verified. These facts are offered
simply as proof that an ex-Adventist minister may not be giving the real reasons for his departure from the
Adventist Church when he stands up to speak or sits down to write against us. Nothing could better
illustrate the well-known fact that the reasons people offer for their actions are not necessarily the real
reasons, and may, indeed, be the very opposite of the truth.
Would Our Critics Be Willing?

Would our critics, who often are spokesmen for other religious bodies, be willing to have their
religious organizations and their doctrinal teachings evaluated in terms of the testimony offered by
ministers who had left their denominations for one reason or another? Then why should Adventists be
indicted because of statements made by ministers who leave us? In any organization there are always a few
men who, for one reason or another, fall out of step. There are occasions, of course, when a man-yes, a
minister may leave an organization because of a sincere difference of conviction. But in too many instances
men leave with bitterness in their heart and thus with a distorted idea of the whole organization. The
Adventist Church cannot hope to escape from this kind of personnel problem, a problem created sometimes
by bad digestion, sometimes by bad nerves, and sometimes simply by a bad heart.
A Reprehensible Course
But if it is unfair to judge a denomination by the testimony of an ex-minister, how reprehensible to
make capital of testimony offered on a denomination's theology by an ex-employee who was never
ordained to the ministry! But let an ex-Adventist employee, printer, businessman, or what not, cry out that
he was delivered from Adventist legalism, and how quickly certain of our critics joyfully rally round him.
With straight face they describe him as a former Adventist leader who held positions of great trust and who
is singularly qualified to speak with authority on what that denomination believes and teaches and what its
broad policies have been.
Yet the man thus lauded may have been employed in some wholly non-ministerial activity, may
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never have attended an Adventist college or secondary school, to say nothing of a theological seminary, and
thus be hardly as well qualified to speak on Adventist doctrine as the average Adventist layman. Yet
somehow a lone man like this is taken as the last word on our theology. If it is a consensus of laymen's
testimony that our critics sincerely desire, why do they not follow the suggestions already offered as to
taking a poll of our lay members? Or is it that they wish to hear only the testimony that pleases them, even
if that testimony must be a lone voice?
Surely this is a strange procedure. Would our ministerial critics ever think of exalting a
businessman in their church as a spokesman on their theology? Would they not ridicule the idea that a non-
ministerial manager of one of their institutions, for example, should speak with authority concerning their
denomination? Would they not consider it outrageous if the interpretation given to their doctrines by such a
man, in opposition to that of all their authorized spokesmen, were accepted by critics as valid testimony
against the teachings of their denomination? Yes, and would they not feel doubly outraged if such a man
built his case against them on stray phrases from their various works, and critics promoted such an eclectic
theological production as being unquestionably correct and authoritative? To ask that question is to answer
it.
Those Early Records

This discussion can hardly be closed without a word regarding early Adventist history. Some critic
may even think to search for evidence of legalism in the records of the early decades of our history when
doctrinal views were being slowly crystallized. But surely no fair-minded person would be much impressed
by such evidence. The student of church history may remember Philip Schaff’s observation regarding the
beginnings of Protestantism, when the Reformers were so dominated with the glorious truth of the liberty
of the gospel that some in the movement tended to mistake license for liberty. Even Calvin was ready to
assert his right to bowl on the green on Sunday to show his liberty in the gospel. But no one would
therefore think of charging that Presbyterianism teaches such a view.
In the first few decades of the Seventh day Adventist Church some of its leaders were so
solemnized with the truth that God's law is eternally binding that they were tempted to give it excessive and
perhaps unwarranted emphasis in relation to other truths. Some of them even feared that the strong
emphasis that other Adventists wished to place on righteousness by faith might blur the vital truth regarding
God's law.
There is nothing mysterious about this. Good men in any developing religious movement require
at least a few decades to stabilize their beliefs. Schaff provides a thoughtful sketch of how slowly there
developed in Protestantism the proper realization of the doctrine of God's law. It seemed so alien at first to
the idea of gospel liberty!
Only a live and growing organization meets opposition. And the kind of opposition is the measure
of the strength of the case that opponents feel they can make out against us! Surely our critics, who are
neither knaves nor dolts, must have quiet moments of misgivings when they ponder this whole matter of
their attacks on Adventists. They know that stray phrases can prove anything and thus prove nothing, and
they know that all our formal statements on the law parallel those of the Protestant creeds. They know that
they could not risk taking the poll suggested. They know that the victories gained by Adventists over liquor
and tobacco, for example, cannot fit into any picture of legalism.
Sabbath Kept Joyfully

What is more, our critics know that Adventists keep the fourth commandment-the Sabbath
command-with a joyfulness and sincerity with which they (the critics) fain would have their communicants
keep Sunday. They know that while they, or their fellow opponents of Adventism, seek laws to under gird
Sunday, Adventists keep the Sabbath without the aid of any legal statutes by the state, and are indeed
militantly opposed to any legal approach to the matter of Sabbath keeping.
Yes, and our critics, who are generally of the Fundamentalist ranks, know that Adventists are
untainted by skeptical, evolutionist doctrines, and that they are ever protected from such heresy by their
weekly keeping of the Sabbath in memory of God's having created the heavens and the earth.
Warm and Spontaneous Liberality

Our critics also know that Seventh day Adventists give gladly and with a liberality that far outdistances the
giving of virtually all other churches in Christendom, and they know that such warm liberality could not
spring from cold legalism.
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Besides all this, our critics know that Adventists conduct a mission program out of all proportion
to their size, that they go into the heart of Africa, the recesses of Asia, and the jungles of the South Seas,
and that as a result of their preaching raw savages turn from devil worship, from filthy, enslaving habits, to
live circumspect, happy Christian lives. Our critics know that legalism is powerless to do this. Have they
not, as good Fundamentalists, often declared that Modernists lack either the urge to go as missionaries or
the power to transform lives if they went? All this and more must trouble the thinking of our critics in their
quiet moments. We think it should!
24. Are Adventist Teachings Christ-Centered?

Emphasis on Prophecy
Our emphasis on prophecy provides us with some of the best proofs that He who was born in
Bethlehem was indeed the promised Messiah. Christ proved His Messiah ship to His doubting disciples by
quoting the Bible prophets. Of His conversation that resurrection day with two disciples on the road to
Emmaus we read: “He said unto them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses
and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
A little later we read these words concerning His statement to the eleven: “He said unto them,
These are the words which I spoke unto you, while 1 was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled,
which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning Me.” We do not
attempt to improve on Christ’s method for establishing His Messiah ship. One, of our distinctive prophetic
teachings deals with the 2300 days of Daniel 8:14. This includes the 70-weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27.
And it is this prophecy that provides one of the most amazing proofs that Jesus is indeed the Christ.
The Mortality of Man

In our preaching of the mortality of man we make very real and forceful the truth that his only
hope of everlasting life is through Christ. We teach the Bible truth that man is not immortal by nature, that
his sins doom him to return to dust. We teach that without Christ, only death looms for the whole race, that
it was our Lord who “brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” We set forth Christ as the
one whose voice will call to life the sleeping saints at the great judgment day, for we believe in a literal
resurrection from the dead. How could we exalt Him more highly?
Sanctuary Teaching
In our preaching of the doctrine of the priestly ministry of Christ in the setting of the ancient
sanctuary service, we exalt Him as our great High Priest, who is ministering His shed blood in our behalf,
and who is our only hope of salvation. For we teach that when His priestly work is ended, the destiny of all
men is settled, the righteous are eternally saved, and the wicked forever debarred from any future
probation. How could we exalt Christ more highly as the center of all our hope of eternal salvation?
Our Preaching of the Law
In our preaching of the law we exalt Christ by revealing that His death on Calvary was man’s only
means of escape from the judgment of death that was upon him. All of us are worthy of death because we
are lawbreakers, for “sin is the transgression of the law.” If God’s law could have been abolished, then
Christ’s death would have been unnecessary, superfluous, and His sacrifice on Calvary would lose its value
as the one way of escape from the death wages that sin imposes on men. We preach that God’s divine law
could not be abolished, and that man’s only hope lies in Christ, who died to pay the penalty that our
lawbreaking demanded.
We emphasize the impressive truth set forth by Paul regarding the work of Christ that enables us
to give obedience to God’s law. Says the apostle: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus bath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin
in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after
the Spirit.” Thus again do we exalt Christ by setting Him forth as the one who makes possible our
obedience to God’s holy law, the Ten Commandments.
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Sabbath Doctrine
In our preaching of the Sabbath we exalt Christ by giving reality to the Bible declaration that He is
Creator. Indeed, we are almost unique in stressing the sublime truth of His Creator ship. To Adventists, the
texts that set forth this fact are very familiar. And it is only as we believe that He is Creator that we can
believe He has power to re-create us, that is, to redeem us, for redemption is a creative act. Further, as we
have already learned, the Sabbath truth guards the way against taking the first step on the road to an
apostasy that robs Christ of His divinity, and His precious blood of its saving power---an apostasy that robs
Christianity of its Christ. The Sabbath truth prepares the heart to accept the whole of the Bible, with its
solemn climax on Calvary and its glorious climax in Christ’s Second Advent. How could we exalt Christ
more highly?
25. The Scapegoat and the Atonement

THE CHARGE that Seventh day Adventists make Satan their vicarious substitute and savior is based on
the fact that we believe the scapegoat represents Satan. The Scripture passage that bears directly on this
point is Leviticus 16, which gives the Atonement Day ritual.
Those who bring against us the charge of making Satan our savior hold that the scapegoat
represents Christ as truly as does the slain goat. Following are the main reasons they set forth for this belief:
1. That the Hebrew word Azazel, which is translated “scapegoat” in our King James Version,
should be translated “goat of departure,” deriving Azazel from two Hebrew words meaning “goat” and “to
depart.”
2. That the Azazel goat is a sin offering, even as is the Lord’s goat that was slain.
3. That the bearing away of the sins by the Azazel goat is a type of Christ’s bearing away our sins.
4. That the slain goat represents Christ’s death on Calvary, and the live goat directs attention to the
risen and living Savior (emphasis being placed on the fact that the resurrection as well as the death is
needed in the plan of salvation). And that the live goat’s being accompanied by someone to a desert place
symbolizes the impossibility of the return of the sins.
Incidentally, those who bring against us the charge concerning the scapegoat, and who hold that
this scapegoat represents a phase of Christ’s work, quite generally in their attacks seem willing to allow the
impression to be created that the view they hold is the practically universal orthodox belief of Christendom.
Thus in the most pronounced and heinous sense of the word, Seventh day Adventists are made to stand
forth as preachers of strange, heretical doctrines.
Let us examine these four reasons:
First Reason Examined

1. The basic claim as to the meaning of the word Azazel cannot be proved, as we shall discover
from an examination of the etymology of the word later in this chapter.
Second Reason Examined

2. We do not believe the Bible teaches that Azazel is a sin offering. If we were confined to the
fifth verse of Leviticus 16, we might conclude that both goats were a sin offering. But the Scriptures
immediately inform us that a unique procedure took place. When the two goats were brought to the door of
the tabernacle, lots were cast upon them. Nowhere else in the sacrificial service is there a parallel to this.
The obvious idea to be obtained from the use of the lot throughout the whole Bible is that of deciding
between two or more. For example, there were two candidates selected for the office of apostle ship, to fill
the place of Judas. The casting of the lot determined which of the two should function in that capacity. That
this is the correct understanding of the problem before us seems clearly to be borne out by the fact that after
the lot was cast, the reference to the sin offering is the word goats singular number. “Aaron shall bring the
goat [not goats] upon which the Lord’s lot fell, and offer him for a sin offering.” Verse 9. Note also verses
15 and 27.
Those who hold that the scapegoat as well as the slain goat represents Christ, endeavor to find a
parallel to this unusual Atonement Day procedure by reference to Leviticus 5:7-10. Here provision is made
that a man who is too poor to bring a lamb may bring “two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, unto the
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Lord; one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering.” Verse 7. But:
a. The priest did not cast lots. Thus the most important point of comparison is lacking.
b. Both of the birds were for the Lord, but only one goat.
c. Both birds were killed by the priest.
Reference is sometimes also made to the two birds brought for the purification of a leprous man
(Leviticus 14:4-7), but this reference may be disposed of by comments “a” and “b” above, and by the
simple statement that we have here no reference to a sin offering or to the purging of sin. Lange’s
commentary discusses the dual offering of the poor, and then comments on the two birds for the leprous
man’s purification, remarking: “These last, however, were not a sacrifice. “-Comments on Leviticus 16.
The way that these two goats were brought before the Lord is without a parallel in the Levitical
service. This fact in itself should at least suggest that some essentially new and added truth was to be
conveyed by the service. With this general statement doubtless our critics would agree, contending that it
was necessary to have these two animals in order to represent rightly the work of Christ as a sin offering.
But to make such a claim as this is equivalent to saying that all the rest of the Levitical ritual of the various
sin offerings, including the Passover Lamb, which the Scripture tells us is the exact type of Christ’s
sacrifice for us (1 Corinthians 5:7), is hopelessly deficient in its symbolism.
Furthermore, how could a live animal properly be considered a sin offering? In every other
passage dealing with the sacrificial system, the sin offering was slain. Is this to be a lone case where a sin
offering lives? If so, what becomes of the very explicit scripture that underlies the whole sacrificial system,
‘Without shedding of blood is no remission” of sin? Hebrews 9:22. Seeing that the priest does not take the
life of the second goat, how can its relation to the sins of the people have any “remission” value? And if it
has no “remission” value, how can it be properly described as a sin offering?
Indeed, what necessity is there for twice remitting the sins of the people? For the blood of the slain
goat is taken into the sanctuary, to which the sins of the people have been transferred in type during the
year, to “make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and
because of their transgressions in all their sins.” Leviticus 16:16. And then when the priest “hath made an
end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar,” he turns to the live
goat. The idea of having the second goat atone again for the sins seems strange even to those who hold that
theory.
In an article entitled “The Meaning of ‘Azazel,’ “ in the Moody Bible Institute Monthly, Grant
Stroh inquires:
“Since the sins of ‘all the congregation of Israel’ had already been atoned for by the death of the
first goat, what is the significance of confessing and placing them upon the head of the live goat that was to
carry them away with him?”-March, 1932.
But he endeavors to prevent this fact from giving any aid to our view, by adding immediately:
“If these sins already had been atoned for, it certainly is incongruous to explain this ceremony as
an act of judgment. This much ought to be clear.”
As to whether the judgment idea is incongruous will be discussed later. But surely this much ought
to be clear, that if the sins of the Israelites had already been atoned for by the death of the first goat, it is
incongruous to view the second goat as a sin offering.
Mr. Stroh goes on to support his belief that the 9ive goat directs our attention to the risen and
living Savior,” by remarking that “in the New Testament the death and resurrection of our Lord are
indissolubly joined together.” Paul’s statement is then quoted: “If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;
you are yet in your sins.” 1 Corinthians 15:17. But if “the sins of ‘all the congregation of Israel’ had already
been atoned for by the death of the first goat,” and this represented Christ’s death on the cross, why must
the freeing of believers from sin, in the antitype, await a further act, namely, the resurrection?
In order to have the live goat also represent Christ, those who hold this view of Azazel must blur
over, if not contradict altogether, the proposition they elsewhere set forth so dogmatically, that complete
atonement for sin was made on the cross.
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Third Reason Examined

3. To attempt to find a parallel between the act of the second goat in bearing away the sins, and
that of Christ in bearing our sins, is to go contrary to the explicit statements of Scripture. We read of Christ,
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” 1 Peter 2:24. The margin reads, “to the tree.”
The American Revised Version reads: “Who his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree,” and the
margin reads, “carried up ... to the tree.” It is said that the live goat was needed to supply a feature that the
slain goat could not, that is, the bearing away of the sins. But John the Baptist (John 1:29) used the symbol
of the Lamb (which to the Jews would convey the thought of the sacrificial lamb, whose blood was poured
out) to convey the truth of Christ’s bearing our sins. Evidently John the Baptist viewed Christ’s bearing of
sins in the way Peter did (1 Peter 2:24), and not in the way these theologians do, who view the scapegoat as
Christ.
Surely the Scriptures are so clear that the bearing, or carrying, or taking away, of sins is from us to
the “tree,” that they quite demolish the most Plausible-sounding parallel between Christ and the second
goat, the parallel built on the word bear. Evidently the live goat’s bearing of sins must have a different
significance from that of Christ’s bearing them.
Fourth Reason Examined

4. Those who teach that the live goat “directs our attention to the risen and living Savior,” must, to
be consistent in their symbolism, believe that Christ rose from the dead loaded with the sins that He had
borne up to the tree. The ritual shows very plainly that the second goat was to be regarded as a thing so
unclean that the man who led it away into the wilderness must “wash his clothes, and bathe his flesh in
water” (Leviticus 16:26) before coming again into the camp. Do the advocates of this doctrine we are
examining really believe they find in this picture of the second goat a parallel to the glorified Christ rising
from the tomb and commanding Mary, “Touch me not”?
Biblical Authorities Cited

So much for an examination of the main reasons brought forth in behalf of the interpretation that
views the live goat as well as the slain goat as representing Christ. Note now the testimony of a
representative group of Biblical authorities, Jews and Christians, liberal and conservative, regarding
Azazel. These quotations will reveal further evidence against the interpretation we have been examining,
and will afford the reader an opportunity to judge for himself whether Seventh day Adventists are preachers
of strange and anti-Christian doctrines in holding that Azazel represents Satan.*
M’Clintock and Strong’s Encyclopaedia

“Scapegoat (Hebrew, Azazel) is the name given in the A.V. to one of the two goats used in the sin
offering for the entire community of Israel on the great Day of Atonement, the goat which was to be sent
away into the wilderness. . . . There can be no doubt that this has the appearance of being some sort of
personage, or interest personified, standing over against Jehovah, or somehow contra-distinguished from
Him. But opinions have front early times been divided on the subject.
“1. The one followed by our translators, which regards it as a name for the goat itself, is of great
antiquity, and has numbers on its side....
“2. By others it has been taken as the name of a place....
“3. Others, again, have taken the word as a pealpal form of the Arabic verb to remove, . . . so that
the meaning comes to be for a complete removing or dismissal (Tholuck, Steudel, Winer, Bshr).
Grammatically, no objection can be urged against this view; and it undoubtedly accords well with the
general import of this part of the rite. ‘The true expiation,’ to use the words of Bahr, ‘was effected by the
blood of the first goat, which was set apart for Jehovah; on the
* Brevity demands that much of the repetitive matter in these quotations be eliminated. No attempt can be
made to give the full argument for any of the views held regarding Azazel. Sufficient, however, is quoted to
reveal the main reasons for the principal views. The argument based on the alleged parallel between the two
goats and the dual offering for a leprous person has been omitted because already been noted.
other hand, the ceremony with the other goat appears as a mere addition made for special reasons, a kind of
complement to the wiping away of the sins which had already been effected by means of the sacrifice.’ . . .
“4. But there is still another class of writers who are disposed to claim for the word a more
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distinctly personal existence, and who would refer it directly to Satan. This view is certainly of high
antiquity. . . .
“It was very common with the rabbins, as in later times it has the support of many authorities-
Spencer, Ammon, Rosemniffier, Gesenius, etc., who hold it to be equivalent to the Roman averruncus, or
evil demon, which was supposed to inhabit desert places, and who needed to be propitiated. But adopted
also, though purged of this idolatrous connection, by Witsius, Meyer, Alting, Hengstenberg. Also quite
recently by Vaihinger and Kurtz. These writers hold that the view in question best preserves the contrast
between the two goats, one for Jehovah, and one for the great adversary Azazel. The latter a being as well
as the former, and a being who (as demons generally) was supposed to have his peculiar dwelling in the
desert. The goat, however, that was sent to this evil spirit-emphatically the removed or separate one-was no
sacrifice, but rather a witness that the accepted sacrifice had been made. It proclaimed, as it were, ‘that the
horrible wilderness, the abode of impure spirits, is alone the place to which the sins of the people, as
originally foreign to human nature and society, properly belong. That Azazel, the abominable, the sinner
from the beginning (John 8:44), is the one from whom they have proceeded, and to whom they must again
with abhorrence be sent back, after the solemn atonement and absolution of the congregation have been
accomplished’ (Vaihinger). No doubt, as thus explained, the leading import of the transaction with this goat
is in proper accordance with the service of the day. But it cannot appear otherwise than strange that, in the
most sacred rite of the old covenant, Satan should be so formally recognized as, according to this view, he
must have been.”-M’CLINTOCK AND STRONG, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical
Literature, vol. 9, pp. 397, 398, art. “Scapegoat.”
Encyclopedic Dictionary
“Azazel.-1. In Scripture: A word occurring in Leviticus 16:8, 10, and 26, where it is translated
‘scapegoat’. But the antithesis which makes the one goat be for Jehovah and the other for Azazel, is best
preserved by supposing Azazel to he such a being as Satan or some other evil spirit.” - The Encyclopedic
Dictionary, Volume 1, 397.
Hastings’ Bible Dictionary

‘Etymology, origin, and significance [of Azazel] are still matters of conjecture. The A. V.
designation scapegoat ... obscures the fact that the word Azazel is a proper name in the original, and in
particular the name of a powerful spirit or demon supposed to inhabit the wilderness or ‘solitary land’
([Leviticus] 16:22, R.V.).” - Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, p. 77, art. “Azazel.”
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia
“The meaning of the word [Azazell has occasioned much discussion. Starting from the fact that
‘for Yahweh’ and ‘for Azazel’ stand in opposition (verse 8), many think that it is the name of a being
opposed to Yahweh,-a desert monster, a demon, or directly Satan. Such as attempt an etymological
interpretation then explain it as characterizing the demon or Satan as removed or apostatized from God, or a
being repelled by men (averruncus), or one which does things apart and in secret (from azal, ‘to go away’).
Others conceive of Azazel, not as a proper name, but as an appellative noun and modified reduplicated
form of a root ‘azal,’ ‘to remove, retire.’ . . . The contrast between ‘for Yahweh’ and ‘for Azazel,’ however,
in verse 8 favors the interpre!ation of Azazel as a proper noun, and a reference to Satan suggests itself. . . .
A definite explanation, satisfactory to all, can hardly be looked for.”-The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia
of Religious Knowledge, vol. 1, p. 389, art. “Azazel.”
Smith’s Bible Dictionary

“In regard to the Hebrew word Azazel (‘scapegoat,’ A.V.), the opinions most worthy of notice are:
1. A designation of the goat itself. The old interpreters in general, the Vulgate, Symmachus, Aquila, Luther,
the A.V., etc., supposed it to equal the goat sent away, or let loose. But the application of Azazel to the goat
itself involves the Hebrew text in difficulty.... 2. The name of the place to which the goat was sent. But the
place is specified in Leviticus 16:10, 21, 22 (Gesenius). 3. A personal being to whom the goat was sent. (a)
Gesenius makes Azazel equal averter, expiator, and supposes it to be some false deity who was to be
appeased by a sacrifice of the goat. (b) Others have regarded him as an evil spirit, or the devil himself. . . .
4. An explanation of the word which seems less objectionable, if not wholly satisfactory, would render the
designation of the lot (Leviticus 16:8, etc., ‘for the scapegoat,’ A.V.) ‘for complete sending away .. .... -
Smith’s Bible Dictionary, p. 83, art. “Atonement, the Day of.”
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Jewish Encyclopedia
“Azazel (scapegoat, Leviticus 16, A.V.): The name of a supernatural being mentioned in
connection with the ritual of the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). After Satan, for whom he was in some
degree a preparation, Azazel enjoys the distinction of being the most mysterious extra human character in
sacred literature. Unlike other Hebrew proper names, the name itself is obscure. . . . Most modern scholars .
. . have accepted the opinion mysteriously hinted at by Ibn Ezra and expressly stated by Nahmanides to
Leviticus 16:8, that Azazel belongs to the class of ‘se’irim,’ goat like demons....
‘Far from involving the recognition of Azazel as a deity, the sending of the goat was, as stated by
Nahmanides, a symbolic expression of the idea that the people’s sins and their evil consequences were to be
sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats
were presented before YHWH [Jehovah] before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the
wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked with YHWH, but regarded simply as the personification
of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of YHWH. . . .
“Azazel would therefore appear to be the head of the supernatural beings of the desert. . . . The
fact that such a ceremony as that in which he figured was instituted, is not a contravention of Leviticus
17:7, by which demon worship was suppressed. For Azazel, in the instance, played a merely passive part.
Moreover, as shown, the symbolical act was really a renunciation of his authority. Such is the signification
of the utter separation of the scapegoat from the people of Israel.”-The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 2, pp.
365-367, art. “Azazel’
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

“By the use of the same preposition le in connection with Jehovah and Azazel, it seems natural to
regard the expressions as entirely parallel and to think of some personal being. Some interpret this word as
referring to a demon of the wilderness. . . . and explain the term as ‘one who has separated himself from
God,’ or ‘he who has separated himself,’ or ‘he who misleads others.’ But a demon of this kind could not
possibly be placed in contrast to Jelinvah in this way. . . In later times the word Azazel was by many Jews
and also by Christian theologians, such as Origen, regarded as that Satan himself who had fallen away from
God. In this interpretation the contrast found in verse 8, in case it is to be regarded as a full parallelism,
would be perfectly correct. But it must be acknowledged that in Holy Scripture, Satan is nowhere called by
the name of Azazel. . . . It is accordingly advisable to interpret Azazel adjectively, i.e., to forgo finding a
complete parallelism in verse 8, and to regard the preposition in connection with Jehovah as used
differently from its use with Azazel. . . . With this interpretation a certain hardness yet remains for our
linguistic sense, because we cannot find a good translation for the adjective. . . .
“Both goats, according to verse 5, are to be regarded as a single sin sacrifice, even should we
interpret Azazel as demon or Satan, and we are accordingly not at all to understand that a sacrifice was
brought to these beings.... In the personal interpretation, we could have, in addition to the idea of the
removal of the guilt, also a second idea, namely, that Azazel can do no harm to Israel, but must be content
with his claim to a goat which takes Israel’s place.”-The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 1,
pp. 343, 344, art. “Azazel.”
Kitto’s Encyclopaedia
“The only difficulty here, and that is a great one, is with respect to the meaning of the word
Azazel, which our translators, in common with a large class of modern commentators, regard as applied to
the goat itself, and render it by ‘scapegoat.’ Others produce reasons, not easily answered, for showing that
the word must be taken as a proper name. Then arises the question. What is the name? Several of the
rabbinical writers regard it as the name of the place to which the scapegoat was conducted.... A step further,
however, brings it more within the range of our recognition-this is, that Azazel is but a name for Satan as
was the opinion of most of the Jewish writers and of the early Christian church. And that the meaning of
the ceremony is, that while the remission of sin is effected by the sacrificed goat (for without shedding of
blood there was no remission, Hebrews 9:22). The other was laden with the sins already, through the other
goat, pardoned, by way of symbolically notifying the fact of Satan, and of triumphing in his discomfiture....
There is another more common explanation, which, if correct, forms a very beautiful interpretation of the
typical rite. This view recognizes the substantial typical identity of the two goats, and in the victim goat
sees Christ dying for our sins, and in the liberated goat views Him as rising again for our justification. But
it must be admitted that the whole subject forms one of the greatest difficulties of Scripture.’ - JOHN
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KITTO, Encyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, p. 363, art. “Goat, Scape.”
Lange’s Commentary
“In regard to the meaning of Azazel: in the great variety of etymologies given for the word by
scholars of the highest standing, it may be assumed as certain that nothing can be positively determined by
the etymology. . . . Not only the roots themselves are varied, but their signification also, and still further the
signification of the compound. Little light can be had from the ancient versions. The Sam., and the Targs.
of Onk., John., and Jerus., retain the word unchanged: so also does the Syriac.... The Jewish authorities
differ, . . . many of them explaining the word of the devil.... The great majority of modern commentators
agree with Spencer and Rosenmuller in interpreting the word itself of the devil, although Bahr, Winer. and
Tholuck contend for the sense complete removal.’ - Lange’s Commentary, Notes on Leviticus 16.
New Standard Bible Dictionary

“Azazel must ... be the name either of the act of sending the goat away into the wilderness or,
preferably, of the person to whom it was sent, possibly a demon in the wilderness....
“In Israel it [the Atonement Day ritual] ... was used to express the thought that sin belongs to a
power or principle hostile to Jehovah, and its complete purgation must include its being sent back to its
source.”-New Standard Bible Dictionary, p. 85 (Funk and Wagnalls).
Teachers’ and Students’ Bible Encyclopedia

“To determine which of the two goats was to be slain, and which sent alive into the wilderness, ‘ it
was ordered that the priest should cast lots upon the two goats. One lot for the Lord (Jehovah), and the
other lot for the scapegoat,’ Leviticus 16:8, but literally for Azazel, a word nowhere else used. There can he
no doubt that this has the appearance of being some sort of personage, or interest personified, standing over
against Jehovah, or somehow contradistinguished from him. But opinions have from early times been
divided on the subject.”--REV. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, D.D., Teachers’ and Students’ Bible
Encyclopedia, Vol. 6, p. 109, art. “Scapegoat.”
Encyclopedia Biblica
“The meaning of Azazel is much disputed; it is. of course, a subject closely connected with the
inquiry’ into the origin of the custom. It is at least certain that, as Azazel receives one goat while Yahwe
[Jehovah] receives the other, both must be personal beings.”-T. K. CHEYNE, M. A., D. D., and J.
SUTHERLAND BLACK M. A., LL. D., Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. 1, p. 395, art. “Azazel.”
Eadie’s Biblical Cyclopedia

“A common opinion is, that the one goat which was slain represented Christ dying and dead for
the sins of man, and that the other goat, which lived and was dismissed, symbolized Christ risen and
pleading our cause. But it might be objected to such a view that the sins of the Hebrew nation were laid on
the live goat after its fellow had been sacrificed. An arrangement which does not harmonize with the actual
atonement of the Son of God, for our sins were laid, not upon the risen Savior, but upon Him before He
died, and in His death. We incline to the oldest view of this subject-a view common in the church till the
period of Julian the apostate, by whom it was abused and caricatured.
“The language in the original is precise and peculiar- It reads, ‘And Aaron shall cast lots on the
two goats-ONE FOR JEHOVAH, ONE FOR AZAZEL.’ What we are to understand by Azazel has been
much disputed. The language appears to us to imply the personality of Azazel-’one for Jehovah, one for
Azazel.’ By Azazel we venture to understand Satan, as do almost all the ancient versions, which leave the
word, as they do the names of other persons, un-translated. Satan is not here, as some allege against this
opinion, put on an equality with God; for the two goats were both brought ‘to Jehovah,’ and were His.
While the very casting of lots, which was in itself a solemn appeal to God, shows that Jehovah claimed the
power of disposal. Neither can it be objected that this was in any sense a sacrifice to Satan, for the animal
was not slain to him; it was only sent to him in disgrace. Bearing upon it sins which God had already
forgiven, it was sent to, Azazel in the wilderness.
“The phrase ‘scapegoat,’ by which the strange term Azazel is rendered in our version, came from
the ‘hircus emissarius’ of the Vulgate. The term Azazel may mean the ‘apostate one’ a name which Satan
merits, and which he seems to have borne among the Jews. It was Satan that brought sin into the world; and
this seduction of man adds to his guilt, and consequently to his punishment. Sin is now pardoned in God’s
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mercy. The one goat was sacrificed as a sin offering; its blood was carried into the holy place, and the
mercy scat was sprinkled with it. Guilt was therefore canceled; by this shedding of blood there was
remission. But sin, though pardoned, is yet hateful to God, and it cannot dwell in His sight: it is removed
away to a ‘land not inhabited’ severed from God’s people, and sent away to man’s first seducer. The sins of
a believing world are taken off them, and rolled back on Satan, their prime author and instigator. Though
the penalty is remitted to believers, it is not remitted to him who brought them into apostasy and ruin. The
tempted are restored, but the whole punishment is seen to fall on the arch tempter.”-Eadie’s Biblical
Cyclopedia, from the Original Text of John Eadie, D. D., LL. D., late professor of Biblical Literature and
Exegesis to the United Presbyterian Church, art. “Scapegoat,” p. 577. (Preface to the new edition written by
A. H. Sayce, of Oxford, and bears date of 1901.)
Sunday School Times

“Of the two goats, one was for Jehovah, signifying God’s acceptance of the sin offering; the other
was for Azazel. This is probably to be understood as a person, being parallel with Jehovah in the preceding
clause. So Azazel is probably a synonym for Satan. The goat for Azazel, the scapegoat, as it is somewhat
misleadingly translated, typifies God’s challenge to Satan (cf. Job 1:8; Ephesians 3:10).” - J. RUSSELL
HOWDEN, Notes on the Sunday School Lessons in Sunday School Times, Jan. 15, 1927.
Bible Translations
Following is a partial list of the translations of the Bible that retain the original word Azazel in the
text: English Revised Version, American Revised Version, American Baptist Improved, Rotherharn’s,
Moulton’s, Moffatt’s, Darby’s, Smith’s, (J. Powis), Leeser’s (Jewish translation of the Old Testament)
Jewish Publication Society translation, 1917. (The Old Testament by a committee of Jewish scholars.
Probably the most authoritative translation among English-speaking Jews.)
Conclusions From Quotations

From the foregoing quotations we may draw the following important conclusions:
1. The meaning of the word Azazel is so obscure that no doctrine may properly be built upon an attempted
translation of the term. Special significance attaches to the fact that so many translations of the Bible,
including the Jewish, leave Azazel untranslated. In fact, with but two or three exceptions, all our Bible
translations either follow the King James Version and use the word scapegoat, or else leave Azazel
untranslated. The retaining of the original term Azazel indicates either that the translators felt that the
meaning of the word was too obscure, or else they considered Azazel a proper name, which would
therefore not call for translation. But of course if Azazel is a proper name, then it must stand for some being
in contrast to Jehovah.
2. A wide divergence of interpretation of the meaning of the Atonement Day ritual has existed from earliest
times.
3. The view which regards Azazel as symbolizing Satan has been held through the centuries by many
theologians, both Jewish and Christian. Lange’s commentary, which is perhaps the most exhaustive and
reliable of such works, affirms that “the great majority of modern commentators” view Azazel as Satan.
(Comments on Leviticus 16.)
4. This view, which makes Azazel a personal being in antithesis to Jehovah, finds strong support in the very
construction of the Hebrew itself. One goat is “for Jehovah,” the other “for Azazel.” To prevent the natural
conclusion of opposing personalities, implied by the similar preposition (“for”), requires the doubtful
expedient of understanding the preposition “in connection with Jehovah as used differently from its use
with Azazel.”-The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. But even then, as this Bible encyclopedia
admits, there remains a “linguistic” difficulty. This procedure, while technically violating no law of
grammar, may properly be viewed as questionable. Certainly a heavy burden of proof rests upon those who
maintain that a preposition (for) used in two apparently parallel and immediately joined phrases, should be
given a different value in one phrase from the other. Evidently the proof produced has not been sufficient to
convince a large part of the theologians through the years, as is witnessed by the great number who have
held that Azazel represents a personality in antithesis to Jehovah.
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5. Even among theologians who do not allow Satan in the picture and who thus restrict the symbolism of
both goats to Christ, the position is set forth (and by one of the most able exponents of that view, Bahr) that
“the true expiation was effected by the blood of the first goat” and that the “ceremony with the other goat
appears as a mere addition made for special reasons. A kind of complement to the wiping away of the sins
which had already been effected by means of the sacrifice.” (See quotation from M’Clintock and Strong’s
Cyclopaedia.) Certainly under this view of the matter, the functions of the “risen and living Savior,” if He
is the Azazel goat, are reduced to a rather purposeless “mere addition.”
6. The many theologians, from the ancient rabbins down to a recent contributor to the Sunday School
Times, who have held that Azazel represents Satan, have not found it necessary to view him as a
substitutionary sacrifice, a savior. On the contrary, they repudiate the thought.
7. Among the theologians who view Azazel as representing Satan, there is prominent the idea of judgment,
the returning to their satanic source of the pardoned sins of God’s children. (See quotations from
M’Clintock and Strong, Jewish Encyclopedia; Kitto, New Standard Bible Dictionary; and Eadie’s Biblical
Cyclopedia.) Evidently the introducing of the thought of judgment into the Atonement Day ritual does not
seem “incongruous” to a wide group of both Jewish and Christian theologians. On the contrary, the idea of
judgment seems vital to many expositors.
A Brief Survey of the Adventist Position

We would not for a moment attempt to prove that our belief concerning Azazel is correct simply because
many Christian leaders through the centuries have held that belief. But when our critics endeavor to give
strength to their attack on us by creating the impression that we teach strange, unchristian doctrine in this
matter, we may rightly introduce as most relevant the evidence of the extent to which this doctrine about
Azazel has been held from earliest times.
It is hardly within the scope of this chapter to go into an extended discussion of our teachings as to
the sanctuary, which provide the proper background for our belief regarding Azazel. Extended discussions
of the sanctuary doctrine are easily obtainable in various of our works. But the following brief outline may
appropriately be given:
In the slaying of the Passover lamb we see Christ, our Passover, slain. (1 Corinthians 5:7.) We see
in the round of the Levitical service, with its priests ministering the spilled blood of the various sin
offerings, our great High Priest in heaven, ministering His blood for those who accept His sacrifice. In the
Atonement Day service, which was the culminating event in the Levitical cycle, and was the day when the
sins that had been confessed throughout the year were finally disposed of, we see the type of the last work
which Christ performs in His priestly ministry for repentant sinners.
We believe that when Christ completes this final work of cleansing the heavenly sanctuary, the
fate of all is determined for eternity, and that then will go forth the edict: “He that is unjust, let him be
unjust still. And he which is filthy, let him he filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still:
and he that is holy, let him be holy still.” Revelation 22: 11.
Azazel Enters Picture After Atonement Is Made

In the typical high priest’s coming out to the Azazel goat after having “made an atonement . . . for
all the congregation of Israel,” having indeed ‘made an end of reconciling”. We see Christ’s leaving the
sanctuary after finally completing His work of atonement, and rolling back upon the head of Satan, the
instigator of all sin, the primary guilt, which is his alone, for the sins of the now-pardoned and eternally
saved believers.
Finally, we see in the scapegoat being led off into the wilderness, a type of Satan, the scapegoat of
the universe, being taken by a strong angel and cast into the “bottomless pit.” * (Revelation 20:1-3.) We
believe that this view of the sanctuary service provides an interpretation of the function of Azazel that is
both rational and Scriptural.
Far from the idea of a judgment’s being “incongruous” as a conclusion to the work of atonement,
the very opposite is true. There is no fact more striking in the Scriptures than that Christ, when He has
finished His work of pleading for men, will put on the garments of vengeance to execute judgment.
Only one objection remains to be considered. It is based on Leviticus 16: 10. “The goat, on which
the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him.”
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Our critics quote this verse and declare to us, “If you believe the scapegoat typifies Satan, then you believe
that Satan is your savior.” We answer emphatically, “No,” &rid add, “If you believe that the scapegoat
typifies Christ, then you believe in a savior we cannot find anywhere in the Bible.” Note the following
facts:
1. We stand squarely on the solemn declaration that without shedding of blood there is no
remission of sins. As already stated, the scapegoat’s blood was not shed. Therefore this goat could not
typify the work of a Being who could. give to us remission of sins. Others may believe that they see the
work of atonement for our sins typified by an animal that is not slain, whose blood is not poured out. But,
standing on the Scripture, we cannot.
2. Earlier in this chapter the fact was established that only one goat , the Lord’s goat,” is offered
up for a sin offering. Therefore we must base our hope of salvation on the Being typified by the goat that
was offered up for sin. That is the only kind of Savior that the Bible describes. Those who would make a
savior of one who was not offered up, teach an un-Scriptural view of salvation.
* The word bottomless pit is from the Greek word abussos. This is the word use in the Greek translation of
the Old Testament (the Septuagint) in the sentence which describes the chaotic state of the earth at the
beginning of creation week: “Darkness was upon the face of the deep [abussos.]” Genesis 1:2. The abussos
into which the devil is cast-the earth which has again returned to a lifeless, barren state as a result of the
Second Advent. This may be very properly be typified by the wilderness destination of the goat.
Therefore we do not, we cannot, view the live goat as typifying Christ, who saves us from our sins.
3. The blood of the slain goat made atonement “for all the congregation of Israel” for “all their sins.”
Verses 17, 16. And when the priest had finished ministering its blood, he had “made an end of reconciling.”
Verse 20. These statements are so plain that, as we noted at the beginning of this chapter, our critics frankly
admit that “the sins of ‘all the congregation of Israel’ had already been atoned for by the death of, the first
goat when the high priest came out to the live goat. Thus the people had already been freed from their guilt,
and accordingly were no longer in need of a Savior from their sins, when the high priest came out of the
sanctuary. The Savior described in the Bible came to our rescue “while we were yet sinners.” (Romans 5:8)
Poor sinners do not stand in need of a savior who makes no contact with their sins until after those sins
have been atoned for. Where is the text that gives even the semblance of support for the belief that sins
which have been atoned for are then laid upon Christ? Yet that is the kind of savior we would have if we
viewed the scapegoat as a type of Christ. We find no such Christ in the Scriptures. Therefore, believing that
Azazel represents a personal being, we are logically compelled to view the scapegoat as typifying Satan.
Explain a Hard Passage by Simpler Ones

We willingly admit, as theologians have admitted through all the years, that Leviticus 16: 10 is a
perplexing passage. In dealing with it we have endeavored to follow the approved principle of Bible
interpretation, that is, of understanding a difficult passage by other and clearer passages. The various other
texts in Leviticus 16 regarding the function of the two goats, and the texts elsewhere that deal with the work
of Christ for sinners, surely prohibit us from viewing the scapegoat as Christ. And by a parity of reasoning
they prohibit us from understanding the word atonement in verse 10 as signifying the performance of a
work similar to that performed by the slain goat.
We repeat here an illustration given under objection 98, to show the relation of Satan, the
archfiend, to the plan of salvation:
A group of men have been arrested, tried, and convicted of certain crimes. A heavy fine is
imposed upon them. They are in a hopeless state, for they are penniless. But their hopelessness is changed
to joy; a rich philanthropist offers to pay their fine. They accept, and are free. The case is apparently settled.
But no; the court, continuing its investigations, discovers that a person of fiendish cunning has really
dominated these poor men, and has seduced them into their course of wrongdoing. He is captured, and
judgment is meted out to him. He is made to pay a heavy fine much heavier even than that from which the
poor men have been freed by the gracious act of the philanthropist; for the court reasons that the fiend is
doubly guilty.
Now, it may truly be said that the philanthropist atones, or makes satisfaction, for the crimes of
these poor men. Yet in another sense we could speak. of the archfiend’s atoning for those very crimes.
There is no confusion of meaning, even though each gives satisfaction to justice in a basically different
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way. Nor by declaring that the archfiend gives satisfaction for those crimes do we minimize in the slightest
degree the adequacy and sufficiency of the philanthropist’s gracious act toward the penniless men.
Adventists believe that this explains the statement in Leviticus 16:10. The people’s sins are atoned
for by a Substitute, typified by the slain goat. Then these atoned for sins are thrown back on the head of the
archfiend, Satan, typified by the Azazel goat, who must bear the guilt of primary responsibility for their
sins. In the words of Dr. John Eadie:
“The sins ... are ... rolled back on Satan, their prime author and instigator. Though the penalty is remitted to
believers, it is not remitted to him who brought them into apostasy and ruin. The tempted are restored, but
the whole punishment is seen to fall on the arch tempter.” - Eadie’s Bible Cyclopedia, p. 577.
There is another objection, which is scarcely worthy of even passing notice. It is said that even if
Azazel represents Satan, the goat itself did not represent Satan, that instead it was simply “for Azazel.” But
those who raise this quibble believe that the slain goat, chosen “for the Lord,” represents the Lord Jesus
Himself. Therefore it is but consistent to affirm that the goat “for Azazel represents Satan himself.
Why Are We Singled Out for Attack?

In view of all the evidence in this chapter, especially the evidence as to the widespread belief among
stalwart Protestant theologians that Azazel represents Satan, what is to be thought of the unspeakable
charge brought against us by a certain class, that we make Satan our savior. Because we, along with this
great company of theologians, believe that Azazel represents Satan? But those who bring these charges
against us because of our views concerning AzazeI, have never brought any like charges against any others
who believe similarly. This is indeed the most singular fact in connection with the whole matter. We
therefore decline to give further serious consideration to these indictments against us until those who bring
them are willing to level the same charges against the long and impressive list of Christian leaders who
have held that Azazel represents Satan.
One Writer Retracts Charge

In fairness, it should be stated that one writer who had charged us with teaching that Satan is our savior,
afterward withdrew it. In the Moody Bible Institute Monthly of November, 1930, Grant Stroh, editor of the
‘Practical and Perplexing Questions” department, made this charge. In response to a letter written to the
Moody Monthly, Dr. Stroh published this statement in the February, 1931, issue of that journal.
“The chief exception taken to our statement concerned their doctrine of the atonement. We said:
‘Seventh day Adventism denies the atoning sacrifice of Christ as the only means of man’s salvation, and
declares instead that Satan is our savior, sin bearer, and vicarious substitute.’
“This seems to be an extreme statement, and having read some of the writings of the Seventh day
Adventists since it was made, we find it could be proved from them that such is not their belief. 1 am sure
that most of these people are saved, in spite of their unscriptural teachings, and that most of them probably
do not hold any such view of the atonement. It is only fair to truth, however, that we read not only a
popular statement on their beliefs, such as in the booklet Belief and Work of Seventh day Adventists, but
also examine the way of salvation as set forth by their acknowledged prophet, Mrs. E. G. White. In The
Great Controversy, upon which the statements in ‘Heresies Exposed’ were based. Even then we apologize
for the baldness of the statement in our November issue, and beg forgiveness of these good people for any
misstatement of their doctrines.”
Mrs. E. G. White Describes the Function of the Scapegoat

This retraction is given unique weight by the candid admission that it is the result of “having read
some of the writings of the Seventh day Adventists since” the charge was made. Might it not be proper to
suggest to others that they likewise read carefully some of our standard works before hastening forth to
broadcast the hideous charge that we make Satan our savior? It is true that Dr. Stroh further in his article
expresses distress at the statements made in The Great Controversy, because they permit Satan to be
introduced at all into the picture. But does he set forth anything from Mrs. E. G. White that warrants his
withdrawing his retraction? No! How could he, when Mrs. White states unequivocally on page 658 of that
work:
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“Now the event takes place, foreshadowed in the last solemn service of the Day of Atonement. When the
ministration in the holy of holies had been completed, and the sins of Israel had been removed from the
sanctuary by virtue of the blood of the sin offering, then the scapegoat was presented alive before the Lord.
And in the presence of the congregation the high priest confessed over him ‘all the iniquities of the children
of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat.’ Ley. 16:21. In
like manner, when the work of atonement in the heavenly sanctuary has been completed, then in the
presence of God and heavenly angels and the host of the redeemed, the sins of God’s people will be placed
upon Satan. He will be declared guilty of all the evil which he has caused them to commit. And as the
scapegoat was sent away into a land not inhabited, so Satan will be banished to the desolate earth, an
uninhabited and dreary wilderness.” (Italics ours.)
Our critics, who have examined so critically Mrs. White’s writings in an attempt to find some
stray phrase on which to base. a charge, must surely have read this statement in The Great Controversy, for
it is the climax to her description of the sanctuary service. If they had been willing to publish this quotation,
the appalling indictment that we make Satan our savior would have been exposed as false. Why have they
failed to do so? We must leave that question for them to answer.
26. “Soul” and “Spirit” and “Hell” in the Original Languages

Soul in the Old Testament
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT the word soul is used 473 times. There are three words in the
Hebrew from which soul is translated: 1 time from nedibah. 1 time from neshamah. 471 times from
nephesh.
These three terms are translated by the following words in our English Bible:
Nedibah
1 time, soul. Job 30:15. (The only use of nedibah in the Bible.)
Neshamah
17 times, breath (breathe, breathes, breathed). For example: Genesis 2:7; 7:22; Deuteronomy 20:16; Joshua
10:40; 11:11. 3 times, blast. 2 Samuel 22:16; Job 4:9; Psalm 18:15. 2 times, spirit. Job 26:4; Proverbs
20:27. One time souls. Isaiah 57:16. 1 time, inspiration. Job 32:8.
In one or two instances the figures given to indicate the specific number of times that a Hebrew or
Greek term is translated by a certain English word, will vary, depending on which concordance is used as
authority. The figures in this chapter have been obtained from a comparative study of The Englishman’s
Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance, The Englishman’s Greek Concordance, Young’s Analytical
Concordance, and Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance. However, the fact of interest is not so much the
particular number of times that a certain term is translated by a particular English word, as the great variety
of words by which the Hebrew or Greek term is rendered.
Nephesh
471 Times, soul. (Every text in Old Testament where soul is used, except Job 30:15 and Isaiah 57:16.)
118 Times, life (life’s, lives). For example: Genesis 1:20, 30; 9:4; 1 Kings 19:14; Job 6: 11; Psalm 38:12.
29 Times, person. For example: Numbers 31:19; 35:11, 15, 30; Deuteronomy 27:25; Joshua 20:3, 9; 1
Samuel 22:22.
15 Times, mind. For example: Dent. 18:6; Jeremiah 15:1.
15 Times, heart. For example: Exodus 23:9; Proverbs 23:7.
9 Times, creature. Genesis 1:21, 24; 2:19; 9:10, 12, 15, 16; Leviticus 11:46.
7 Times, body (or, dead body). Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 6:6; 9:6, 7, 10; 19:13; Haggai 2:13.
5 Times, dead. Leviticus 19:28; 21:1; 22:4; Numbers 5:2; 6:11.
4 Times, man (men). Exodus 12:16; 2 Kings 12:4; 1 Chronicles 5:21; Isaiah 49:7.
3 Times, me. Numbers 23:10; Judges 16:30; 1 Kings 20:32.
3 Times, beast. Leviticus 24:18.
2 Times, ghost. Job 11:20; Jeremiah 15:9.
1 Time, fish. Isaiah 19:10.
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Nephesh is also translated one or more times as we, he, thee, they, her, herself, him (and other
forms of the personal pronoun), and as will, appetite, lust, thing, breath, etc. Two striking facts stand out in
this study of the word nephesh:
1. The wide variety of uses to which the word is put.
2. The word is used to describe something that can be killed, and also to designate dead persons.
Note also the repeated statements as to a 1iving creature [nephesh].” The adjective living, would
be superfluous if nephesh itself meant an immortal, never-dying entity.
Soul in the New Testament

In the New Testament the word soul is used 58 times and is uniformly the translation of the Greek
word psuchi. Psuchi
is rendered by the following words in our English Bible:
58 Times, soul.
40 Times, life. For example: Mark 3:4; 10:45; Luke 6:9; 9:56; John 13:37; Romans 11:3; Revelation 8:9;
12:11.
3 Times, mind. Acts 14:2; Philippians 1:27; Hebrews 12:3.
1 Time, heart. Ephesians 6:6.
1 Time, heartily (literally, from the soul). Colossians 3:23.
Psuchi is also used, once in John 10:24 and in 2 Corinthians 12:15, in idiomatic phrases that
cannot be literally translated.
Note that the words kill and destroy are used several times in regard to psuchi.
Spirit in the Old Testament

In the Old Testament the word spirit is used 234 times. It is a translation of the following Hebrew
words:
2 times from neshamah. 232 times from ruach. These two terms are translated by the following
words in our English Bible:
Neshamah (See analysis earlier in chapter.)
Ruach 232 times, spirit. (With the exception of Job 26:4 and Proverbs 20:27, which are from nesharnah,
spirit in the Old Testament is always from ruach.)
97 Times, wind (Wind in the Old Testament is always a translation of ruach.)
28 Times, breath. For example: Genesis 6:17; 7:15, 22; Job 12: 10; Psalm 104:29; 146:4; Ecclesiastes 3:19.
8 Times, mind. Genesis 26:35; Proverbs 29: 11; Ezekiel 11:5; 20:32, Dan. 5:20; Habakkuk 1: 11.
4 Times, blast. Exodus 15:8; 2 Kings 19:7; Isaiah 25:4; 37:7.
Ruach is also translated one or More times by the following words: anger, air, tempest, vain.
Spirit in the New Testament

In the New Testament the word spirit is used 290 times. It is a translation of the following Greek
words:
2 times from phantasina. 288 times from pneuma.
These two Greek words are translated by the following words in our English Bible:
Phantasina
2 Times, spirit. Matthew 14:26; Mark 6:49. (These are the only uses of the word phantasma in the Bible.)
Pneuma 288 Times, spirit. (With the exception of Matthew 14:26 and Mark 6:49, spirit in the New
Testament is always a translation of pneuma.)
92 Times, ghost. Matthew 27:50; John 19:30. (Also every instance where the word is used in the phrase
“Holy Ghost.”)
1 Time, life. Revelation 13:15.
1 Time, wind. John 3:8.
1 Time, spiritual. 1 Corinthians 14:12.
Hell in the Old Testament

In the Old Testament the word hell is used 31 times, and is uniformly the translation of the
Hebrew word sheol. Sheol is rendered by the following words in our English Bible:
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31 Times, hell.
31 Times, grave. For example: Genesis 37:35; 1 Samuel 2:6; Job 7:9; Psalm 30:3; Ecclesiastes 9:10, Isaiah
38:18; Ezekiel 31:15; Hosea 13:14.
3 Times, pit. Numbers 16:30, 33; Job 17:16.
Hell in the New Testament

In the New-Testament the word hell is used 23 times. It is a translation of the following Greek
words:
10 Times from hades,
12 Times from gehenna.
1 Time from tartaroo.
These three Greek words are translated by the following words in our English Bible:
Hades 10 Times, hell. Matthew 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Revelation 1:18; 6:8;
20:13, 14.
1 Time, grave. 1 Corinthians 15:55.
Gehenna 9 Times, hell, as a noun. Matthew 5:29, 30; 10:28; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45; Luke 12:5; James
3:6.
3 Times, hell, as an adjective. Matthew 5:22; 18:9; Mark 9:47.
Tartaroo 1 Time, hell. 2 Peter 2:4. (The only use of tartaroo in the Bible.)
Definitions of Hebrew Terms

The following definitions are from Gesenius, probably the greatest of Hebrew lexicographers. The
edition of the Lexicon here used is one published in 1875 by John Wiley & Son, New York, the English
translation being by Samuel P. Tregelles:
“NEDIBAH: Nobility, a noble and happy condition.”
“NESHAMAH: (1) Breath, spirit. (a) The Spirit of God imparting life and wisdom. (b) The spirit
of man, soul. A living creature.
“(2) The panting of those who are angry, used of the anger of God.”
“NEPHESH: (1) Breath.
“ (2) The soul, anima, psuche, by which the body lives, the token of which life is drawing breath
hence life, vital principle. Genesis 35:18; 1 Kings 17:21; Exodus 21:23. The soul is also said both to live
(Genesis 12:13; Psalm 119:175); and to die (judges 16:30); to be killed (Numbers 31:19). It is often used in
phrases which relate either to the loss or to the preservation of life.
“(3) The mind, as the scat of the senses, affections, and various emotions.
“(4) Concretely, animal, that in which there is a soul or mind....
“(5) It is sometimes I, myself, thou, thyself.”
“RUACH: (1) Spirit, breath. (a) Breath of the mouth. Hence used of anything quickly perishing.
Often used of the vital spirit. (b) Breath of the nostrils, snuffing, snorting. Hence anger. (c) Breath of air, air
in motion, i. e., breeze.
“ (2) Psuche anima, breath, life, the vital principle, which shows itself in the breathing of the
mouth and nostrils (see No. 1, a, b), whether of men or of beasts, Ecclesiastes 3:21; 8:8; 12:7.
“ (3) The rational mind or spirit. (a) As the seat of the senses, affections, and emotions of various
kinds. (b) As to the mode of thinking and acting. (c) Of will and counsel. More rarely (d) it is applied to the
intellect.
“ (4) The Spirit of God.”
“SHEOL: A subterranean place, full of thick darkness Job 10:21, 22), in which the shades of the
dead are gathered together; hell, purgatory, limbus Patrum.... A hollow and subterranean place.”
Definitions of Greek Terms

The following definitions are from Liddell and Scott’s Greek Lexicon:
“PSUCHE: 1. Breath, Latin, anima, especially as the sign of life, life, spirit. 2. The soul or
immortal part of man, as opposed to his body or perishable part, in Homer only in the significance of a
departed soul, spirit, ghost: he represents it as bodiless and not to be seized by mortal hands. 3. As the
organ of nous, i. e., of thought and judgment, the soul, mind, reason, understanding. 4. The anima mundi, or
living spirit, which was supposed in the ancient philosophy to permeate all lands and the whole extent of
the sea and high heaven.”
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“PHANTASMA: An appearance, image, phantom, specter. A vision, dream. 2. Especially an

image presented to the mind by ah object.... 3. A mere image, unreality.”
“PNEUMA: Wind, air.... 2. Especially like Latin anima, the air we breathe, breath, also breathing,
respiration. 3. Life, also the spirit, a living being.... 4. A spirit, spiritual being, [in] New Testament. 5.
Metaphorically, spirit, i.e., feeling.”
“HADES: The nether world. Place of departed spirits. The grave, death.
“GEHENNA: The valley of Hinnom, which represented the Place of future punishment.”
“TARTAROO: [A form of the noun Tartaros] The nether world generally.”
Comments on Definitions
It should be remembered that the foregoing definitions are largely illustrations of how the terms
were used by classic Greek writers. Hence pagan conceptions are inevitably interwoven. In these
definitions of both Hebrew and Greek words agree the other lexicographers.
There is nothing in the primary definitions of the terms for soul and spirit that demands or even
warrants the thought of an immortal, undying entity, independent of the body. True, the second definition
given for psuchi is the “immortal part of man,” but the lexicographers are simply noting down one of the
uses of psuchi by the classical Greeks, such as Homer, who were pagans. To attempt to settle a question of
Christian theology by appealing to a definition based on the usage of a word by pagan writers, would
indeed be a strange procedure. By such a method we could find support for the pagan doctrine of pantheism
in the fourth definition of psuchi, which, again, is simply an illustration of the usage of the word by pagan
writers.
We grant that the pagans believed in disembodied souls, or spirits, and therefore, at times, used
psuchi and other terms to express that belief. The question is simply this: Does the primary meaning of
psuchi, or any other term translated “soul” or “spirit,” necessitate belief in the immortal-entity idea? The
answer is, No. Then follows the companion question: Does the use of these terms by Bible writers-not
pagan writers necessitate, or even warrant, such belief? The answer is, No.
There is nothing in the definition or usage of sheol that even implies a place of burning or ‘
torment. The same may be said of the terms hades and tartaroo. The pagans knew that the dead went
somewhere, they knew not where, and the terms they frequently used to describe that unknown abode, were
hades and tartaroo. The term gehenna is really a proper noun, a transliteration of a Hebrew name for the
burning, place outside Jerusalem. We have here the literary, figure of simile. The final judgment, or
destruction, of the wicked is likened to the fires burning in the valley of Hinnom. The fires of Hinnom were
not quenched; that was why they were certain to consume all that was cast into them.
27. Immortal-Soul Dilemmas Versus The True View of Man

THE BEST WAY TO SHOW the fallacy that resides in. the orthodox view of man as a being with
an immortal soul is to show the dilemmas that this doctrine creates. Then, in contrast, we can show the
harmony, Scriptural and logical, that results from holding the view that Adventists believe and teach. First,
what does the orthodox view of man require us to believe?
Makes Unreasonable Demands on Faith

1. This tenet demands that we believe there dwells within us an entity possessed of personality, yet
without weight or discernible dimensions. Indeed, this tenet logically requires us to believe that this entity
is the real man, for the body is viewed as but a shell, a temporary prison. This calls for a stretch of faith
beyond the reach of many otherwise devout men, especially among those who make up the ranks of the
learned and scientific. In the attempt to prove the existence of this alleged entity, the Christian theologian
and philosopher have had to rely on certain vague scriptures and metaphysical deductions. To many minds
such “proof” has failed to offset the testimony of the senses and the fundamental laws of science, for the
senses can discern no such entity, and the most definitely established of nature’s laws find no place for a
“something” without weight or dimensions.
Takes Reality out of Man

2. This belief that man, the real man, is but an airy soul, without weight, and so minute that ten
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thousand could dance on the point of a cambric needle, as the older theologians declared, takes the reality
out of the future life. Tangibility cannot be given to the term heaven, for consistency demands that
vaporous, invisible beings dwell in a place of the same nature. This doctrine makes heaven appear as an
airy abode of attenuated spirits, who apparently, because it would he illogical to think of their doing
anything more substantial, are pictured as endlessly flitting about to the accompaniment of harps. Such a
conception of heaven has gone far to quench the longing of many to reach that blessed abode, for the
human mind is so constituted that it must think in terms of something more substantial than this vaporous
picture of heaven presents.
Necessitates Ever-burning Hell

3. This doctrine makes an ever-burning hell a logical necessity; for if man is inherently immortal,
then the wicked as well as the righteous will live through the ceaseless ages of eternity. Bloodcurdling are
the sermons this belief has produced. Granted that the average minister today does not preach on the topic
as was done in former times. His silence is only a confession of the hideousness of the doctrine that must be
true if man is an immortal soul. Indeed, there has been a definite trend away from belief in any kind of
retribution, because the average mind is unable to harmonize an ever-burning hell with the character of
God. Thus there has come about a great loss in moral values for a belief in punishment is as vital to a
balanced view of religion as a belief in reward.
No other doctrine has ever brought such reproach upon the name of God and of Christianity. It is
said that Robert Ingersoll, after listening, when a boy, to an orthodox sermon on the kind of judgment God
would mete out to sinners, exclaimed, “If that is God, I hate Him.” The united arguments of all the
Christian apologists who have attempted to harmonize this dogma with the universal and deep-seated belief
in a loving God, fall far short of their goal. This is the dark spot in apologetics.
But there is still another problem that this eternal-hell doctrine presents. The Christian view of the
universe requires that the completion of God’s plan for the salvation of man and the conquest of evil should
bring about the restoration of that state of universal holiness and happiness that existed at first. But if there
be a hell, then we have, not the annihilation, but merely the segregation of evil. Now the policy of
segregation is considered by Christians as a poor makeshift for an earthly government to employ in dealing
with crime and criminals. Is it possible that such a procedure is ideal when employed by the government of
heaven?
Makes Resurrection Superfluous

4. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul leaves no rational place for a resurrection of the
body or for an executive judgment at the close of earthly history. While these two doctrines-the resurrection
and the future judgment are in the creeds of almost all denominations, they are inconsistent with the
teaching that the body is merely a prison house from which the soul escapes at death, going directly to its
reward. Why should the soul again be thrust into a “prison house,” and why should there be held a
judgment, seeing each soul receives judgment at death by being consigned either to heaven or to hell?
These questions suggest their own answer, and explain, at least in part, the almost complete
absence of preaching on the subject of the resurrection.
Gives Aid to Spiritualism

5. This immortal-soul doctrine makes spiritualism appear highly reasonable. The popular view,
which pictures our departed loved ones as near us and deeply interested in our affairs, is but a step removed
from spiritualism, which simply adds the feature of communication. Thus instead of a wall’s being reared
against this cult, which virtually all ministers regard as evil, there is a door opened to it.
Beyond all controversy, there is something vitally the matter with orthodox belief regarding man
and the future life. If the inspired maxim, “By their fruits you shall know them is still a safe rule, then this
teaching stands condemned, for its fruits are theological confusion, spiritualism, and infidelity.
The Doctrine Adventists Teach

The Bible doctrine which Seventh-day Adventists preach concerning man’s nature dissolves the
dilemmas and doctrinal difficulties that confront Christians who hold the immortal soul theory, and in the
very process of dissolving these difficulties this true Bible doctrine brings a new sense of reality and
certainty to various important aspects of the Christian religion.
We do not have to teach the incredible doctrine that there exists within man a “something” which
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is the real man, but which is not discernible to any of the senses, and is not answerable to any of the proved
laws of science. We view the word man as signifying something very real and substantial. We do not
wander off into the mazes of metaphysical discussion in an attempt to understand or explain how God
could breathe into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man become a living soul. We simply affirm, on the
strength of the Bible record, that body, soul, and spirit are all required to give existence and meaning to
what the Bible refers to when it speaks of man in the most basic sense of that word.
Our Teaching Not Gross

Nor are we embarrassed by the charge that there is something gross in this conception of man. We
believe that this charge reveals that Christendom is still infected in some degree with the Gnostic heresy
that matter is essentially evil. It has been said that in Catholicism, Gnosticism gained half a victory. The
monkish fervor that took hold of many in the early centuries of the church, and which reached a dramatic
height in the body-mortifying asceticism of the pillar saints, was a natural fruitage of the pernicious idea
that matter is essentially evil, and that, the more the body is wasted away, the more the soul can flourish.
Monkish asceticism could never find logical roots among Seventh-day Adventists. On the
contrary, our view of man calls for us to give great care to these bodies of ours. We see a fullness of
meaning in Paul’s injunction: “Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the
glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31. And we, of all people, are best able to appreciate the apostle’s
declaration that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, and that if we defile these bodies God will
destroy us. Our doctrine of healthful living rests solidly and logically on the foundation of our doctrine
regarding the nature of man.
Believing as we do regarding man, we do not have to describe the future state of the blessed as
composed of a mixture of misty vapors and harp music. Our view of man calls for a real place of abode.
That harmonizes with our understanding of the first creation of man as a perfect being which, by analogy,
calls for equally literal as well as equally perfect beings to dwell on the earth made new.
We Believe in Hell-fire
Our view of the nature of man does not interfere in any way with the doctrine of final hell-fire.
Indeed, if the real man is a literal being, then the place of punishment must surely be a literal place, and the
punishment must be something very literal. But what our view of man as mortal does save us from is the
teaching that hell’s fires will never end. A literal fire burns to ashes literal beings, which fact harmonizes
with the prophecy of Malachi 4:1-3. There is no immortal entity to resist eternally the flames. Our belief
concerning the creation of this earth anew as the abode for literal, perfect beings, requires of itself that there
shall be an end to the fires of hell.
Obviously our doctrine of man’s nature makes necessary a belief in the bodily resurrection from
the grave. We can take most literally the declarations of Paul concerning the “redemption of our body,” and
his further statement that “when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have
put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory.” We can also understand what the apostle means when, in concluding his account of the famous
worthies, in the epistle to the Hebrews, he declares, “These all, having obtained a good report through faith,
received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be
made perfect.” Hebrews 11:39,40.
Protected Against Spiritualism

Finally, we have an ironclad argument against spiritualism, with its materialization; Catholicism,
with its supplications to long-dead saints and its prayers for the dead; and any ism that is built on the
doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul. In fact, those who accept the Bible view that man lies silent
in the grave until the resurrection are the only ones who can consistently oppose spiritualism or return an
answer to the perplexing inquiry of spiritualists: “Why do Christian ministers oppose the investigations of
spiritualism, when our success would simply serve to establish one of the great doctrines of the Christian
church immortality? With psychic activities increasing every year, this question will become an
increasingly distressing one to those who hold to the so-called orthodox view of the soul.
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28. Are We Selfish in Opposing Sunday Laws?

VERY FREQUENTLY Sunday-law advocates charge that our opposition to such legislation is
based on selfish, if not altogether evil, grounds. It is not an infrequent thing for us to receive from those
who have read our religious liberty literature, letters declaring that we are carrying on our agitation simply
to save ourselves from persecution, the inference of the letters being, of course, that all our arguments
against Sunday laws are proved valueless because we have a personal issue at stake in the controversy.
Even if we granted, for the sake of argument, that we try to save ourselves from persecution, that in no way
affects the validity of our contention that Sunday laws are wrong. It would be as reasonable to declare that a
defendant’s arguments against the unconstitutionality of a law invoked to deprive him of civil liberty are
invalid solely because he has a personal interest in the case. If those who are likely to lose their liberty as
the result of a proposed law do not raise their voice in protest, who will? Rarely those who will in no way
be affected by it. This is but an ordinary fact of experience.
Furthermore, why should it be thought a questionable procedure for Christians to claim the
constitutional guarantees that are rightfully theirs as citizens? The great apostle Paul repeatedly employed
his Roman citizenship to save him from the brutal treatment that his erstwhile brethren would have
administered to him. His famous declaration, “I appeal unto Caesar,” is a classic in Christian literature.
No, it is no indictment of us as Christian people if we base our opposition to Sunday laws on the
simple, natural ground of endeavoring to protect ourselves from inimical legislation. But proper and lawful
as such a basis might be, our continued and increasing attacks upon Sunday legislation are not on personal
grounds.
We Believe in the Workingman

The Sunday law reformers make a great point of their love for the workingman, and their desire
that he shall have a day of rest. By inference, all those who oppose their reform program are classed as
enemies of the “poor workingman.” But this charge is absurd when brought against Seventh-day
Adventists. One of the evident facts regarding our denomination is that it is very largely composed of
ordinary toilers. Are we enemies of our own membership?
Again, the reformers say much of the irreligious condition in the world, and of the need, therefore,
for Sunday laws in order to meet the situation. By inference, and sometimes by specific accusations, all
opponents of their program are charged with being either blind to the deplorable state of affairs in the world
or else willing and happy to have such conditions continue. But no form of this charge can hold against us,
for our literature far outdoes that of the reformers in its declarations concerning the desperate state into
which our world has sunk. No, the charge that we are blind to conditions in the world or content with them
does not hold.
Differ as to Remedy
We are awake to the world situation. We differ with the reformers simply in the matter of the
proposed solution. They would bring in the kingdom of God through the gateway of politics, and have our
legislators save us from destruction. We would invoke the promised Second Coming of Christ to save us
from this evil world. Our experience, both as citizens and as Christians, leads us to put our confidence in
Jesus Christ and His coming rather than in legislators and their programs.
Our opposition to Sunday laws cannot be explained on the grounds of our endeavoring to save
ourselves from persecution, or by the charge that we are foes of the workingman, or that we are blind to the
evil conditions in the world. None of these explanations, or a multitude of others like them, that have been
offered, give the clue to the fervent and unrelenting stand that we have taken against all the endeavors of
Sunday-law advocates to enforce their conception of religion by the aid of the state. It may be difficult, of
course, for some people to understand how an organization could be willing to spend so much energy and
time and money in connection with an issue like this, without having some selfish, personal interest in it.
But then, there are many people who are unable to understand how the same body of Christian people are
willing to spend even greater amounts on foreign mission projects.
What, then, are our reasons for opposition? They may be summed up briefly under five headings:
1. Our Duty to Warn Men

As students of prophecy we believe that the day is coming when the principles of religious
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intolerance that marked the Dark Ages will be revived, that there will be in the very closing hours of this
world’s history a mighty religion-political combine that will endeavor to dominate the consciences of men.
And we believe it is our solemn duty to warn men against giving their support to this movement, which is
even now forming itself, lest they be lulled into a sense of false security by thinking that in thus supporting
this movement they are building up the kingdom of God on earth. We have no alternative in the matter,
seeing that Christ, through the prophet John, has commanded us to cry out against this movement, so that
men may be saved from giving their support to such an evil program.
2. Must Proclaim Sabbath

In connection with this warning message that we are commanded to give, we find the injunction to
proclaim the great Sabbath message to the world, and what more auspicious occasion could be found for
giving special publicity to the true Sabbath than when men are endeavoring to stir up the world in support
of the false? In this way our opposition to Sunday laws becomes not a negative but a positive thing. We
simply capitalize the occasions of great public interest in Sunday laws to proclaim more fully the true
Sabbath message.
The servant of the Lord foresaw that as the time of trouble began, the people of God would go
forth to preach the Sabbath doctrine more fully and more convincingly than ever before. The agitation for
Sunday legislation provides a choice illustration of how the wrath of man can be made to praise God; or, to
state it in the most charitable form, how the endeavors of mistaken zealots can be made to serve a good
purpose.
As a result of the widespread campaign that reformers have made through the public press and
otherwise in recent years, there are probably more people who have become acquainted with the real facts
on the Sabbath question than ever before, because every agitation by Sunday advocates has made
newspaper and magazine editors even more than ready to publish matter giving the other side of the case.
We would have been woefully remiss in our duty if we had failed to use these opportunities.
3. Protect Men Against Becoming Persecutors

We believe that there are many sincere and earnest men in the ranks of Sunday-law advocates. In
fact, we are willing to admit that all of them are striving, according to their conception of the gospel, to
advance the kingdom of God. But their sincerity does not make their course any the less wrong. If their
program is carried out, and the strong arm of the law is drafted in their support, they will thus become
Persecutors.
We can conceive of no fate more tragic than that of a man whose misguided zeal for God finally
causes him to become a persecutor of others who are striving to preach the gospel. Christ foretold such a
tragedy as this when He, declared that the time will come when he that “kills you will think that he does
God service.” This divine forecast was fulfilled during the Middle Ages, and may be fulfilled again in the
last days. In fact, at the very last there will be only two classes, the persecutors and the persecuted-those
who give support to the great religion-political combine, and those who, because of their opposing stand,
are forbidden even to buy or to sell. Not to save ourselves from being persecuted, but to save others from
being persecutors, is a chief reason for our stand against Sunday laws. We have endeavored in all our
literature to make clear to the reformers the evil direction in which they are going, and it should ever be our
zealous endeavor to do this in a spirit of charity and Christian love, making our attack on principles, not on
persons.
4. Loyalty to the State

The Scriptures plainly declare that we owe allegiance to the state, and should endeavor loyally and
zealously to support it in the carrying on of its proper functions. (See Romans 13: 1-7; Matthew 22:16-2l.)
In this fact is to be found a valid reason for our outcry against the endeavors of reformers to combine the
church with the state. Knowing as we do from history and prophecy that such a combine can work only to
the detriment of the citizens, and to the destruction of the free institutions of the country, we would surely
fail to carry out the full meaning of the divine injunction to support the government if we failed to raise our
voice in warning against such a menacing danger.
The truly loyal citizen is the man who possesses the moral courage to rise up and sound an alarm,
even though he may be in the minority, and his numerous opponents may be the advocates of an apparently
good program. And the one who thus sounds the alarm is in no wise violating the principle of the separation
of church and state. Instead, he is arousing all men to the need of continuing inviolate that vital separation.
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5. Protect Christianity’s Good Name

Finally, we oppose Sunday legislation because we would protect Christianity from the false
conception of it that the masses of the people would have if proposed religious legislation were allowed to
go unchallenged. One of the greatest handicaps under which the minister of the gospel labors is the feeling
on the part of the man on the street that the church symbolizes an organization that is striving to force its
views upon people. Surely there is a historical basis for such a feeling. And when the average individual,
who is not a churchgoer, sees the endeavors of present-day militant church leaders to employ the power of
the state, the antipathy toward the church is only intensified.
We are jealous to protect the Christian religion from this gross misconception. We would not be
loyal to our divine mission if we did not use every means possible to let men know that the gospel of Jesus
Christ is not a gospel of force, and that He has commissioned His disciples to invite men to believe in Him.
We would oppose with equal vigor any attempt to enforce the seventh-day Sabbath by law.
If the graciously invitational character of the gospel could only be impressed upon the hearts of all
men, half the difficulty in reaching the masses with the divine evangelist would be removed. Nothing is so
conducive to winning men to the church as assuring them that the Christian religion has nothing to do with
coercion. We would give to Christianity its greatest appeal by taking our stand with Christ, who proclaimed
liberty of soul to all men, and whose only approach to their hearts was through the avenue of love-a
pathway down which the minister of Christ may walk unchallenged into the hearts of multitudes.
29. Do Adventists Seek a “Wide Open” Sunday?

OFTEN SUNDAY-LAW ADVOCATES seek to embarrass us in the matter of our opposition to
Sunday laws by accusing us of aiding and abetting the disreputable elements in the country. The charge
seems to have plausibility. Do not irreligious, commercial interests seek Sunday-law repeal, arguing for a
“wide open” Sunday for every kind of commercial amusement? And do not Adventists also urge repeal of
those same laws? In fact, do not Adventists strive earnestly to liberalize such laws, even if they cannot
succeed in having them repealed? And is there not already too much liberalizing in matters of religion and
morality?
The fallacies in this charge are examined in an address delivered at a hearing in Annapolis, the
State capitol of Maryland, on a bill to liberalize the State Sunday law in certain counties. The amusement
interests were there to speak for the bill. I also spoke, addressing my remarks to the then governor of
Maryland, the Honorable Albert C. Ritchie:
The Text of the Address

Your Excellency: 1 labor under an unusual handicap in attempting to speak on the Sunday
Liberalization Bill that is before you. Undoubtedly the most distinctive feature of it is the permitting of
movies on Sunday. My handicap is that of ignorance; I do not attend movies at all, and so I cannot speak
from personal, firsthand knowledge as to the effect of movies on morals on any of the seven days of the
week. Nor is my ignorance relieved by inquiry of my parishioners, for they do not attend. It is one of the
requirements of Seventh-day Adventist church fellowship that the members do not attend movies, the
theater, or any similar places of amusement.
It is necessary to make my position clear at the outset, that my attitude may not possibly be
misunderstood. For someone to say, as has been repeatedly said because of my public statements on this
matter in the past, that “Mr. Nichol wants the movies opened on Sunday,” is to put the matter in an
altogether wrong light. It would be as accurate to say that I want the grocery stores, the bank, the bakery,
opened on Sunday. But my real interest would be revealed by saying that I want the theater man, the
banker, the grocer, and the baker to have the right to open if they wish. As a citizen, I do not care which
day any one of them opens or closes-least of all the moving-picture theater. I might even go so far as to
express the wish that some places of amusement, including some theaters-if well-authenticated reports may
be believed-were not open any day in the week. Yes, I would go even further, and say that without doubt
some of these places of amusement ought properly to be the objects of vigorous legislation, and compelled
to close their doors forever.
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Sunday Law Wrong Solution of Problem

But, Your Excellency, the point that I wish to make clear is this: That Sunday legislation is riot the
proper way to deal with any business or industry or institution inimical to society. The state can know no
distinction of days in determining the question of the propriety of acts either of an individual or of a
business. To contend that what is proper on one day is wrong on another ‘is most certainly to contend that
there is an essential difference in the two days. This is the logic of all Sunday legislation. It is the logic of
the Maryland Sunday law, which the bill before you proposes to liberalize.
I cannot consistently restrict my remarks to the question of liberalizing this law. To work simply
for the liberalization of a law is to admit tacitly that the law is right and just in principle, and needs only
revision. Believing, as I do, that Sunday legislation is wrong in principle, I appeal, not for liberalization, but
for absolute repeal.
Let no member of the clergy gasp at this liberal statement and hasten to charge that I would have
the state remove all restraint and give license to any conduct. My appeal is only for repeal of the Sunday
law, and not of the criminal statutes under which evil deeds or evil amusements may be prosecuted seven
days in the week. To say that the Sunday law must be retained in order to protect the morals of the citizenry
is to state a fallacy, for we have a surplus of laws touching on every conceivable question of morals and of
our relation to one another as citizens.
Sunday Laws and the Laboring Man

Or to say that Sunday laws must be maintained in order to protect the workingman is also to state
a fallacy. The advocates of Sunday laws deplore the laxity in enforcement in recent years compared with
former generations. Yet the condition of the workingman in this present generation is vastly better than in
any former time. In fact, in States where there is no Sunday law, the workingman does not suffer. There are
civil statutes which protect him from oppressive hours of labor.
There is only one ground on which Sunday laws can be urged. It is the historical ground on which
such laws in all former centuries have been promoted, and that is to protect a day which many devout
persons consider holy. That Sunday legislation is primarily and essentially religious legislation, and only
secondarily and indirectly social and moral legislation, is surely not open to question. The reading of the
texts of the Sunday laws of past generations makes abundantly evident their religious nature, without the
necessity of my entering into any extended historical discussion. Let me be specific, and quote the opening
words of the first Sunday law in Maryland: “Forasmuch as the sanctification and keeping holy the Lord’s
day commonly called Sunday, hath been and is esteemed by the present and all the primitive Christians and
people, to be a principal part of the worship of Almighty God, and the honor due to His holy name; Be it
enacted,” etc. This is typical of other Sunday laws of the colonies and of the old country. It is certain that if
we had lived in those days, we would not have thought to ask a colonial whether Sunday laws were
religious laws, for the question would have found its unequivocal answer in the texts of the statutes. The
fact that the revised codes of postcolonial times have dropped out certain religious phrases from the texts of
the Sunday laws in no way affects the essential nature of such laws or their definite historical connection.
Why We Plead for Repeal

Your Excellency, it is because Sunday legislation is religious legislation that I plead not simply for
its liberalization but for its repeal. And my plea grows out of the fact that I am a believer in the Bible and
also in the principles set forth by the founding fathers regarding separation of church and state. In matters
of religion and our duties and relationship to God, I believe that the state should play no part. Religious
beliefs and our sense of religious duties proceed from the depths of the conscience and from our
interpretation of God’s Word. Therefore, to make such beliefs and duties the objects of cold civil legislation
is to change the basis of our relationship to God from that of free will and loving obedience to that of
coercion and necessity. There is doubtless no one in this fair State of Maryland but would declare that he
believed in religious liberty. Indeed, many of our forefathers came to America for the express purpose of
securing religious liberty. Yet so steeped were they in the Old World idea that religion is properly a subject
for legislation that they immediately formulated laws reflecting their religious viewpoint. The result was
that even in this new land dissenting religious minorities suffered various degrees of hardship and even
persecution. The early colonists did not immediately see that religious liberty meant liberty not only for
themselves but for all others no matter how differing their religious views. It was not until the founding of
the Federal Government that the principle of the separation of church and state was fully and clearly
enunciated and applied.
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A New Principle in Political World

It was indeed a new thing for the rest of the world, accustomed from time immemorial to the
fusion of church and state, to see a new nation created on the principle that the state has no proper
jurisdiction over the church, nor the church over the state, but that each has an individual sphere of its own.
An amazed world heard proclaimed the doctrine that conscience and religious beliefs are not amenable to
civil legislation. it is in this vital particular that our nation is different from all others. There have been
republics since the days of Rome. Democracy was a form of government that flourished in ancient Greece,
and confederacies of states were known long before our day. But a state with no state god, no national
church, and repudiating the very principle upon which any fusion of religion with the state might be built
ah, that was something new!
On this clear principle of the separation of church and state our Federal Government was built. It
is America’s distinctive contribution to political history. It is to this principle above all else that we owe the
vitality and reality of our boasted liberty, especially religious liberty.
Slow Deletion of Religious Laws

But the various States of the Union were founded in an earlier century, when this principle of
church and state separation was only dimly understood. Gradually, as the leaven of this revolutionary
principle began to work, religious laws were deleted from the statute books, until today they are virtually
all gone-all but the Sunday laws. True, the strongly religious language of the Sunday statutes is tempered,
as are also their penalties, but the laws still remain. They are a relic from a former age, reminders of a day
when legislation on religious duties was as common, and considered as proper, as legislation on civil ones.
Ever-present Threat to Liberty

But modified though they are, these Sunday laws are strangely out of harmony with true American
principles. And though no longer consistently enforced, even in their present form, nevertheless these laws
restrict in a real way the liberties of those who do not desire to rest on Sunday. Specifically, right here in
Maryland the law operates to compel the man who believes in no day to give passive homage to a certain
day because the majority in the State happen to believe in that day. What is even more unfair, this Sunday
law compels a man who has already rested on a day which he believes holy to rest an additional day in the
week, and all because he happens to be in the minority.
But here is where Sunday-law proponents endeavor to make a bold defense of their course by
employing the language of democracy. They declare that the majority of the people wish a Sunday law, and
should not the majority rule? But, Your Excellency, if the majority have a right to enforce their will on the
minority in this one particular area of religion, who can logically deny their right to enforce their will in
other areas of religion? Is not the fallacy evident? Their argument proves too much.
What If Adventists Were in Majority?

But to make certain that the advocates of Sunday legislation do not fail to see the untenability of
the majority argument in religious questions, let us suppose that Seventh-day Adventists became in the
majority in Maryland-stranger things have happened in the history of religion. And suppose we should have
enacted a law to compel all to rest on Saturday, no matter what their religious beliefs might be. Suppose,
further, that various of our members took occasion at times to report to the police even such a minor
infraction of the law as the doing of a little work around one’s house on Saturday. How quickly-yes, and
how properly-would our Sunday keeping friends cry out that they were being oppressed by religious
legislation, that their rights were invaded! And how altogether unconvincing to them would sound our
argument that the majority wish a Saturday law! With vigor would they insist that matters of religion
cannot be settled by majorities.
But today they are in the majority, we in the minority. And, accordingly, we suffer handicaps, and
not infrequently hardships. Only a short time ago a member of my church was spied upon while doing a
little painting on a window inside his home on Sunday, and suffered five days’ imprisonment. His only
offense was that he had violated a religious law.
And yet, Your Excellency, we are made the objects of scorn, and charged with being enemies of
religion, of society, and of the state, because we raise our voices against such a law. I contend that the facts
warrant the conclusion that ours must be a real religion to continue active under such handicaps, and that
we are friends, not enemies, of the state in pleading for the complete repeal of all religious legislation.
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Religion Too Holy to Mix With State

To extol the glories and the divine origin of religion or religious days is not therefore to furnish a
valid reason for state legislation in behalf of religion, but rather the contrary. Something so holy as religion
should be freed from alliance with something so secular as the state. Christianity displayed its greatest
purity and its greatest growth in the early centuries, when it not only lacked the support of the state but was
the object of bitter attack.
I am not a party to the framing of this present bill for liberalization, and have no conceivable
interest in it personally. But I am vitally concerned with the primary question that is raised by any bill that
deals with Sunday. And it is with the primary principle alone that I am concerned.
Doubtless it will be charged, in conclusion, that the adoption of this principle of the absolute
repeal of all religious laws would make for a “wide open” Sunday. Your Excellency, the state should know
no widths to days; certainly it should not attempt to determine widths by the varying yardsticks of different
creeds. The state should not be in the business of enforcing religious tenets; the church should not seek
such aid. The arm of the Lord, not the arm of the law, should be the strength of religion.
30. How Shall We Meet the “Christian Nation” Argument?

IN AMERICA ONE OF THE PREMISES on which Sunday law advocates build is that this is a
Christian nation, and therefore Sunday legislation is not only defensible but imperative if Christian
standards are to be reflected through the activities of the government. At first the argument in support of the
Christian-nation claim was rather vague and of this order: Christian people founded the country, some of
them coming here for religious reasons. The moral principles of Christianity are woven into our customs
and laws. The oath is administered in the name of God. Sunday is excluded from the count of days in
determining certain judicial matters, thus taking cognizance of its distinctive character.
These and like reasons were originally offered in proof that this is a Christian nation, and hence
should protect Sunday with legislation. Then came the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States
in 1892, in what is known as the Holy Trinity Church case, in which the statement is made that “this is a
Christian nation.” The case dealt with the right of that church to import a minister from abroad. Lower
courts had ruled that this violated a law forbidding the import of foreign labor.
Supreme Court’s Reasoning in 1892

The Supreme Court reasoned that the legislators never intended to include religious groups or
individuals in the restrictive law, and supported this reasoning by showing that from earliest days the
people of this country had acknowledged God as supreme and had sought to do His will. After citing
declarations as far back as the commission of Ferdinand and Isabella to Columbus, the court declared:
“These, and many other matters, which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations
to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.” - 143 U.S., 457.
How far the justices intended the logic of their statement to be carried is not evident from that
decision. They there invoked the “Christian nation” claim only to create a reasonable presumption that the
legislators never intended to include ministers in their law against foreign labor. Thus, strictly speaking, the
reasoning that climaxed in the conclusion that this is a Christian nation, is really not the decision of the
court, but is, in legal parlance, an obiter dictum, a kind of parenthetical observation. The court was not
ruling on the question of whether this is or is not a Christian nation, but on whether the Church of the Holy
Trinity had violated a labor law.
Reformers Comment on Court’s Words

However, Sunday-law reformers did not trouble themselves over legal niceties. They had their
own convictions as to the implications of the Christian-nation statement. In the organ of the National
Reform Association appeared this exuberant comment:
“This is a Christian nation.’ That means Christian government, Christian laws, Christian
institutions, Christian practices, Christian citizenship. And this is not an outburst of popular passion or
prejudice. Christ did not lay His guiding hand there, but upon the calm, dispassionate, supreme judicial
tribunal of our government. It is the weightiest, the noblest, the most tremendously far reaching in its
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consequences of all the utterances of that sovereign tribunal. And that utterance is for Christianity, for
Christ. ‘A Christian nation!’ Then this nation is Christ’s nation, for nothing can be Christian that does not
belong to Him. Then His word is its sovereign law. Then the nation is Christ’s servant. Then it ought to,
and must, confess, love, and obey Christ.” - The Christian Statesman, November 19, 1892.
This quotation reveals how far reaching were the conclusions that the reformers drew from the
words of the Supreme Court. Of course, these reformers were chiefly and immediately concerned to find
support for Sunday laws. Charity toward them requires us to believe that they did not truly see what their
bubbling rhetoric could lead to. Zealots and reformers are rarely given to dispassionate, calm, and logical
analysis. They are inclined, rather, to seize with fervor whatever appears to support their cause, without
troubling to inquire whether it may prove to be a broken reed that will pierce them.
Our Analysis of Reformers’ Position

Seventh-day Adventists have consistently argued that the National Reformers, in reasoning as they
did, logically gave to the state a religious character, and caused its statutes to appear as springing from the
mind of God and a holy people. Hence, to rebel against the state or against any of its laws would be
tantamount to rebelling against the will of God. But if that be so, it is pointless for a citizen to set up his
individual conscience against any mandate of the state. Is it not presumptuous for anyone to say that God,
speaking to him through his conscience, forbids him to obey a law of a Christian nation? Does God
contradict Himself?
In other words, we have consistently held that the logic of the Christian-nation premise leads
inevitably to a revival of the medieval doctrine that the king can do no wrong. How plausibly that claim
was made! Did not God set up the king? Does not the Bible declare that he is the minister of God? The
peasant in those days of the divine right of kings could not hope to make a case in court by arguing that his
conscience forbade his obeying a law of the king. The argument had no standing.
Supreme Court Speaks in 1931

I often wondered whether the Supreme Court might someday interpret its own words and reveal
what are the logical conclusions that follow from the loose, though sweeping, observation that “this is a
Christian nation.” The Holy Trinity Church case was decided in 1892. In the year 1931 the Supreme Court
handed down a decision in the case of Dr. Douglas Clyde MacIntosh, who had applied for citizenship, with
a reservation regarding the bearing of arms. Dr. MacIntosh reserved the right to let his conscience tell him
whether he ought to bear arms in a particular war that might be fought. In ruling against his application, the
Court reasoned in the following manner:
“When he speaks of putting his allegiance to the will of God above his allegiance to the
Government, it is evident, in the light of his entire statement, that he means to make his own interpretation
of the will of God the decisive test which shall conclude the Government and stay its hand. We are a
Christian people (Holy Trinity Church vs. United States, 143 U. S. 457, 470, 471), according to one another
the equal right of religious freedom, and acknowledging with reverence the duty of obedience to the will of
God.
“But, also, we are a nation with the duty to survive; a nation whose Constitution contemplates war
as well as peace. Whose Government must go forward upon the assumption, and safely can proceed upon
no other, that unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and obedience to the laws of the land, as
well those made for war as those made for peace, are not inconsistent with the will of God.”
Reformers Comment on Court’s Decision

The same Christian Statesman that in 1892 had given such fulsome praise to the Supreme Court
for its declaration that this is a Christian nation, joined the chorus of the religious press in denunciation of
the Court in 1931. I quote briefly:
“Just now the American people have been rudely awakened to the fact that this liberty of the
conscience for the individual citizen is threatened at least, by making its surrender one of the conditions for
becoming a citizen by naturalization.
“In this case the Federal Government has officially declared that it has the power to decide when
and in what circumstances it may, under the plea of necessity, override the conscience of the individual
citizen. Carried into the realm of actual citizenship, this would abolish the right of the individual to judge of
the righteousness of the acts of the government he has helped to create and of his own active Participation
in them. It requires but logic and the ruthlessness born of excitement, to march from this premise straight to
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all the conclusions of the state sovereignty of Soviet Russia.” - The Christian Statesman, July-August,
1931.
Nowhere in this fervent defense of the individual conscience does The Christian Statesman reveal
that it is aware that the Court had used the National Reformers’ favorite Christian Nation [In the Trinity
Church case the phrases “Christian nation,” “Christian people,” and “religious people” are used
interchangeably as virtually synonymous.] phrase as the basis for its decision against MacIntosh. The
Reformers observed that the Court’s decision gave the government the “power” to “override the conscience
of the individual citizen.” But the Court contended not only that the state has the power but also the right,
and that this right rests upon the premise that “unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and
obedience to the laws of the land are not inconsistent with the will of God.” This is but another way of
saying that the laws of the land are not inconsistent with the will of God. And of course this leads on to the
far-reaching but inevitable conclusion that the citizen is to discover what is the will of God for him, not by
searching his heart and conscience, but by examining the laws and statute books of the state.
Reasoning Valid if Premise Correct

And why may not the Court thus reason if it really believes that this is a “Christian people”? If this
or any other nation is truly Christian; if, as a state, it possesses not only a political but a religious character,
the Christian religion at that, then it may plausibly be argued that the laws of the land are not inconsistent
with the-will of God. Indeed, only on the premise that this is a Christian nation, and thus guiding its course
by the standards of heaven, could it possibly be contended that the laws of the land are not inconsistent with
the will of God.
The National Reformers were happy to declare that the Supreme Court acted under the guiding
hand of Christ when it said in the Holy Trinity Church case that this is a Christian nation. In fact, they
declared at the time that the Court’s statement in that case actually established that this is a Christian
nation. But when this same supreme tribunal later quoted the Trinity Church case and went on to reason
that citizens should give unquestioning obedience to the laws of the state, the Reformers were ready to
pillory the Court. But how did the Reformers know that Christ guided the Court in the first instance but not
in the second? Are the National Reformers better able to decide what are the ultimate conclusions that may
logically be drawn from a statement of the Supreme Court than is the Court itself?
Is it not evident that the only way to escape the conclusion reached by the Court in the MacIntosh
case is to set down the counter view that “unqualified allegiance to the nation and submission and
obedience to the laws of the land” may, in certain instances, be wholly “inconsistent with the will of God.”
But to maintain this position we must surrender the view that the nation is Christian. That is the dilemma
that has confronted the National Reformers ever since the Supreme Court decision in the MacIntosh case.
Other Fallacies in Reformers’ Claims

Turning aside, now, from this devastating Supreme Court commentary on the famous Christian-
nation phrase, let us explore a little further the statements made by the National Reformers in their historic
pronouncement of 1892. We shall see that their reasoning contains other fallacies than those exposed by the
Supreme Court decision in the MacIntosh case. In 1892 they came to the sweeping conclusion that because
this is a Christian nation “this nation is Christ’s nation, for nothing can be Christian that does not belong to
Him. Then His word is its sovereign law. Then the nation is Christ’s servant. Then it ought to, and must,
confess, love, and obey Christ.”
The National Reformers appear to have made this statement to protect themselves against the
question that clamors for expression: Why call this country Christian when its citizenry in general are
anything but Christian? Let us examine the statement. If we should say to a man, “You are now a Christian,
therefore you ‘ought to, and must, confess, love, and obey Christ,- our words would need explaining, to
avoid most serious error. If we meant simply that the man was to continue such a relationship to Christ,
well and good. But if we meant that because lie had been pronounced a Christian, he must therefore begin
to relate himself thus to Christ, we would be guilty of turning the Christian program upside down. It is
because a man confesses, loves, and is willing to obey Christ that lie becomes a Christian.
Now the National Reformers were unable to say in 1892 that the nation could be pronounced
“Christian” on the ground that it had been confessing, loving, and obeying Christ. So they were obliged to
work from the opposite end, affirming, first, that the nation is Christian, and then telling it that it “ought to,
and must,” act Christian.
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What Will They Say Today?

The Reformers made that statement more than half a century ago. Will they contend that the nation
has, during those years, changed its ways as “it ought to,” and justified the pronouncement as to its national
Christianity? I hardly think they would have the hardihood to attempt to prove this. The fact of the
increasing problem of crime, and of disregard for law on the part of the citizenry at large, is too generally
known. Those who sought to give spiritual guidance to millions of men in two world wars declare that the
nation is largely pagan.
If, after half a century, the nation has failed to conform to Christianity as “it ought to,” but instead
has become only worse, is it not about time that all those who truly love the name Christian protest against
the hypocrisy of the phrase Christian nation”? The nation has not been improved by the magic of the
famous phrase. And certainly the beautiful word Christian has received no added richness of meaning from
being thus combined.
But perhaps the National Reformers may contend that while it is true that national conditions have
become only worse during the years, nevertheless the title “Christian nation- should still be retained,
because as a result of reforms that they will launch, the nation will finally do what “it ought to.” In reply it
might be said that the title never should have been given in the first place, not only because as a matter of
fact the nation is not Christian in its conduct, but because the state cannot properly have a religious
character. Nevertheless, let us consider this final argument in defense of the notable phrase. Can the
National Reformers point to any nation that has been nationally reformed? We read much of the decline
and fall of empires, morally as well as politically, but scarcely a word of their reformation.
And if, after a half century and more of active endeavor by the National Reformers, the country
has gone only downward morally, what reason can they offer as to why we should believe they can reform
it, throughout, in the future? Can they do what earnest contenders for Christian principles have been unable
to do in any other nation or century?
Surely history does not warrant the belief that the nation at large will ever do what “it ought to.”
Should we, nevertheless, continue to describe it as “Christian,” solely because “it ought to” do that which it
never has and never may be expected to do as a nation? If so, then words have lost their distinctive
meaning, and we can properly call a man “Christian” who for half a century has steadily sunk lower
morally-not, because we believe he is confessing, loving, and obeying Christ, but because we believe he
“ought to.”
31. How Are Prohibition Laws Related to Religious Liberty?

HERE ARE SOME WHO FEEL that there is a contradiction between our advocacy of prohibitory
liquor laws and our insistence on liberty. That criticism comes largely from those outside our membership.
A different kind of misunderstanding in the matter of prohibition laws reveals itself at times inside our
ranks. There are some of our members who feel that we should seek to secure prohibitory laws because the
Bible condemns liquor and drunkenness.
In these days when the crusade for prohibition is again gathering momentum, and certain areas
have prohibitory laws, we should understand clearly what kind of antiliquor laws Adventists may
consistently support, and what kind of reasoning we may properly employ in giving our support.
Prohibition and Personal Liberty-Letter to the Editor

First, let us examine the question of the consistency of campaigning for prohibition laws while
advocating liberty. The following letter 1 received brings the question into focus:
“Dear Sir: Please tell me why a person has a right to enter my house and arrest me because I have
a bottle marked ‘Whisky’ on a shelf; but nothing is said about the fact that on the same shelf is a bottle
marked ‘Carbolic Acid,’ which is as sure to kill as the whisky, if drunk as freely? If a prohibition law is
O.K. as practiced, why not have a law to forbid the use of tobacco? ‘The poison in tobacco is more subtle
than in alcohol.’ ‘Meat eating is doing its deadly work’ why not a law to prohibit the use of meat? ‘Drugs
never cured any one’-why not prohibit the use of drugs by law?” The letter was answered as follows:
Text of the Editor’s Letter in Reply

As I understand the matter, the real basis on which laws prohibiting liquor rest, is that the liquor
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business creates a menace to the rest of society and to the security of the community. In other words, that
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on the part of the members of society are jeopardized by the liquor
business. For example, the liquor tavern, which has been the symbol and center of the whole liquor industry
through all the years and in all countries, has an unbroken record of being a public nuisance, a place where
every kind of vice can breed, and where men can partake of stuff that so inflames the mind that they no
longer have full possession of their faculties, and thus become a danger to their fellow men.
To call attention to the fact that all who drink do not thus become a danger is not a valid reply. It is
equally a fact that not all men who might carry a revolver on their hip would use it improperly. In enacting
legislation, it is obviously impossible to draw fine lines and distinguish between individuals. Thus the
principle is employed of passing a general prohibition on something which has so generally proved itself to
be dangerous as to demand that sort of legislation. So today there is a law against carrying a revolver. And
for anyone to contend that he would not use the revolver improperly would not avail. But surely neither you
nor anyone else who is law abiding would offer objection to such curtailment of personal liberty. Yet it is
obvious that in a certain sense of the word your liberty has been curtailed, for the time was that any man
might carry on his person any kind of weapon he wanted.
Why Laws Against Speeding?

Again, we have a prohibition on the speed we can drive our cars. Why should anyone tell us just
how fast we may drive? For the simple reason that if we drive beyond that speed we become a potential
danger to society. We endanger not only our own lives but the lives of others. And it is quite pointless for
any of us to argue that we can safely drive beyond such limits, and ought not to be held back because a few
others cannot well control their cars at such speed. We cannot make one law for one man and another law
for another. We proceed on the general principle that fast driving is dangerous to the community, and make
a law against it.
Ten times over can it be established in the blood and tears of drunken brawls and broken homes
that the presence of the liquor business in a country creates a real danger to the peace of society. And for
that reason a prohibition upon the whole liquor business is just as rational, just as defensible, yes, a hundred
times more so, as any prohibition against carrying concealed weapons or driving at an excessive rate of
speed.
Now, as to your wondering why an officer may arrest you for possessing whisky and not for
possessing carbolic acid, since both are deadly. Without doubt, if a carbolic acid beverage industry grew up
in the country, and people were persuaded to get the habit, and the getting of that habit would not only
work disaster upon them personally but make them dangerous to society, I believe that you, along with
others, would think it quite proper to legislate against carbolic acid. But the facts are that- nobody is
promoting such an industry. And as is painfully obvious, if anyone got the carbolic-acid habit, he would get
over it very quickly, and never prove a danger to anyone else. The situation would be automatically settled,
and therefore would hardly warrant legislation. Of course, there is a prohibitory law that applies against
carbolic-acid drinking. Suicide is prohibited by law!
To the extent that poisonous substances such as drugs are likely to cause men to become enemies
of society or a burden upon society, we do have legislation. We have vigorous anti-narcotic laws, and we
all approve of them. And no rational person seems to feel that it is wrong for a prohibition to be placed on
the use of such drugs, or that any one’s personal liberty is being improperly interfered with.
Why No Laws Against Tobacco, Meat

Your inquiry as to why tobacco should not be prohibited because it has a poison in it more subtle
than that in alcohol, or why meat eating should not be prohibited inasmuch as it is unhealthful, seems to
me, in view of the foregoing statements, to be wholly irrelevant. If tobacco smoking necessitated an
institution like the tavern, with all its vicious atmosphere; if it caused men to maim and kill each other in
tobacco brawls. If it caused them to beat or murder their wives or leave them penniless and a burden upon
society, then I would say that the state had proper grounds for legislation; for the peace of society would be
affected. As much as I hate even the smell of tobacco, I have never found any ground for believing that
tobacco would cause men to do any of these terrible things. And much as I abhor even the sight of meat, I
could never give any credence to the story of a man’s rushing madly from a meal of beefsteak, or even
bacon, to go out and murder his wife or his children. In fact, I have never heard such a story, have you?
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The Bible in Relation to Temperance Work

The second question, the relation of the Bible to prohibition laws, perplexes some of our Adventist
church members. When we deal with the liquor problem in terms of an appeal to men of their own free will
to refrain from liquor, we should use the Bible. But when we endeavor to secure a civil statute to prohibit
drinking, we should not base our appeal on religious grounds, but only on civil. A church member who had
read a statement like the foregoing wrote to say that he thought we thus excluded “the Lord from a part in
the temperance work,” and would cause our denomination to “go the way of all other denominations. It’s
all right to bring forth man’s strongest reasons? But they should be backed up with a ‘Thus said the Lord.’
1 believe if we do this, the temperance cause will win. Religious liberty will not be affected in the least. It
will help religious liberty instead of harming it.” The letter was answered as follows:
Text of the Editor’s Letter in Reply

I believe as ardently as you, or any other Christian, that when we are appealing to an individual as
to the relationship he personally should bear to liquor, we may properly, indeed surely ought to, use the
Scriptural evidence and arguments with all the vigor we possess. We should set before him not only the fact
that liquor is bad for his body and makes him an economic liability to society, but that intemperance is
contrary to the revealed will of God, and therefore that he as an individual answerable to God should give
heed to the warnings in the Good Book, and order his life accordingly.
But when we move out of the realm of the appeal to the heart of the individual to refrain from
drinking, over to the support of a civil statute which is intended to prevent a man’s drinking whether he will
or no, then we are in quite a different world. We must employ evidence, reasons, and arguments that belong
properly in the civil realm: the facts that have to do with the relationship of man to man, and not man to
God-the social, the economic arguments, for example.
To contend that because the Bible forbids drinking, we should have a civil statute against drink,
enforced by the policeman’s club, is to put ourselves essentially on the basis that the reasoning employed
by the various church reform organizations. They declare, for example, that the Bible condemns Sabbath
breaking; therefore there ought to be a law on the statute books to prevent men from violating the Sabbath
command. Our basic reason for taking issue with them on this is not on the ground of their error in
substituting “first day” for “seventh day” in the command of God, but because we believe that the Bible, a
religious book, ought not to be made the basis for civil statutes. We contend that to do so is to violate the
primary principle of separation of church and state, and to do obvious injustice to a great part of the
citizenry who do not view the Bible as an authority in their lives.
I cannot see how we, as champions of religious liberty, can safely enter into the discussion of laws
at all unless we ever hold to the clear-cut principle that civil statutes must be built upon and defended by
civil reasons. This, of course, does not say for a moment that various civil prohibitory laws, such as those
against murder, robbery, and so forth, are not also found in the Good Book. It means that if we are going to
avoid confusing the realm of the religious and the civil, we must find a sufficient justification on civil
grounds for these various statutes, altogether apart from any Biblical arguments.
Prohibitory and Sunday Laws

It is a well-known fact that almost without exception the various denominations have tied together
their fight for a prohibition law and a Sunday law. I am afraid they would receive great consolation from
the viewpoint that you apparently take, and would ask only that you be consistent, and argue also for their
Sabbath law, because Sabbath desecration is as clearly condemned in the Scriptures as is intemperance. It
would not relieve your situation any for you to reply to them that the Bible nowhere commands Sunday to
be kept holy, for they might immediately inquire whether you were refusing your support of their Sunday
law simply because you believed in a different day. You would have to answer them No that you were
against all Sabbath legislation. Such an answer would reveal, I believe, that you really could not be in
agreement with them at all in appealing to Bible commands as a basis for a civil law. Therefore, to be really
consistent, you would have to drop out, of your antiliquor fight the Bible argument when you were focusing
on the civil-statute feature of the liquor problem.
In view of this 1 hardly think you are quite accurate in saying that if my “theory” is adopted, “our
denomination will go the way of all other denominations.” The facts are that in making the distinctions
between religion and the state on this liquor question we are going in the very opposite direction from other
denominations. If they made the distinctions I am here expressing, they would cease to work for Sunday
laws.
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The Warning from Puritanism

There was a time in our country when various of the colonies, especially the Puritan colonists,
took the Bible as the basis for their code of laws. Such a procedure at first blush looks like a high and holy
one to follow, but all of us know the sad results in religious intolerance that grew out of that program. As
Adventists we have held up the program of the Puritans as an example of what ought not to be done. And as
a denomination we have taken the position that the only escape from the dangers of religious intolerance
that grow out of such a course as was followed by the Puritans, is to apply Bible commands exclusively to
the hearts and the free will of men and to enact only such civil statutes as can be justified on civil grounds.
It would be very much easier for me in many ways, at least it would make it possible for me to
cooperate much more largely with other religious groups, if I blurred over the distinctions that I have
endeavored to set forth in this letter. But I do not feel I can do this, except at the peril of sacrificing some
very primary conceptions as to religious liberty.
Believe Also in Bible

On the other hand, I am not willing to be viewed as behind even the most ardent Christian brother
in my vigorous employment of Scriptural injunctions and commands on the matter of liquor drinking, when
appealing to men’s hearts to refrain from drink of their own free will. And, indeed, I believe we ought to do
more of this. Such work may properly parallel our appeal on civil grounds for prohibitory laws against
liquor. My contention is this: While these two lines of activity may properly be carried on parallel, they
ought never to be fused together so that we begin to declare that because the Bible says thus and so,
therefore we ought to have a civil statute forcing men by pains and penalties to order their lives
accordingly.
32. Six, Distinguishing Marks of Apostates

THEY WENT OUT FROM US, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no
doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of
us. 1 John 2:19.
This inspired statement was made only about seventy years after the founding of the Christian
church. There were numbers still living who had witnessed the organization of this new movement in the
world. Yet this short space of time sufficed for the manifestation of desertions from the church, with all the
troubles that such apostasies create. It is not a thing to be marveled at, then, that in these last days also the
church of God should be troubled with offshoots.
The Bible does not give us many details regarding the church troubles of the first century, nor is it
necessary for us to know them; but it is well for us to give some thought and study to the question as it
affects our own age. From time to time since the beginning of this Second Advent message there have been
those who have gone out from us. This condition is frequently a cause of perplexity to many good church
members, who, though they may not be led away in apostasy, are nevertheless not quite able to understand
why such -earnest people” have withdrawn from the movement.
A lucid way to deal with this problem is to set down the outstanding characteristics of these
offshoots, and with these to draw definite conclusions. Allowing for some minor exceptions, we find that
the various offshoots developed from time to time possess, or did possess while they existed, the following
characteristics.
Destructive
1. They are destructive. Their message is not a new, clear, positive one, but negative. They are
chiefly concerned with denouncing the movement with which they have so lately been allied. True
Protestantism, though it is a protest against the evils of the false church out of which our fathers came, is
defined in terms of positive truths that were set forth by the Reformers. No great wisdom is required to be a
critic or to denounce others. The evidence of wisdom, the kind that comes down from above, is in the
setting forth of a new and better way in which men should walk.
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Much Ado About Nothing

2. Irrelevant or unimportant questions are stressed. If the whole time and energy of the offshoot is
not concerned with denouncing or criticizing the denomination, the “new light 11 given out consists of
irrelevant and often ludicrous points. There are certain minds that seem possessed of the sad faculty of
stressing the unimportant; they are almost ready to become martyrs for the inconsequential. We have a
chronic illustration of this in the person who is ready to call down anathemas on the men of the
denomination because they shave the -corner of their beard.”
Mistakes of Leaders Featured

3. The mistakes of certain leaders are held up. Reduced to a syllogism, the argument runs thus:
Elder Blank is a conference president. He is not what he ought to be. Therefore the whole movement is evil.
This is not a new method of attacking an organization. It is as old, and also as faulty, as the human
race. The right or wrong basis of a movement cannot thus be determined. There will always be those among
the leaders who are not what God would have them to be. But the movement is not bad because of them;
rather is it good in spite of them. The question of whether the Lord is leading a movement can be answered
only by comparing its doctrines with the words of Scripture. “If they speak not according to this word,”
then we can rightly say that the organization is not of God. And, conversely, if they do speak according to
the Bible, then God surely must be directing the work, for only when the Spirit of God enlightens men can
they know the truth. Flesh and blood cannot reveal it unto them. Therefore this Second Advent movement,
which is teaching the true Bible doctrines, was not started by the wisdom of man, nor does it thus continue.
Although it is a fact that the faulty lives of its leaders can do great damage and cause the name of
God to be blasphemed among the Gentiles, and though it is also a fact that real Christianity can be fully
understood only as lived out, yet we must always remember that the question of the divine origin of
Christianity must be decided by the great spiritual truths and moral standards it represents, and not by the
lives of those who call themselves Christians.
Through two long world wars the so-called Christian peoples of various nations killed one another
in bloody fighting, much to the bewilderment of the heathen, who thought that Christianity meant loving
each other. The only explanation needed for this paradox is that these Christian peoples were not living up
to what they claimed to believe. Christianity still stands as the revelation of God to man, despite the course
that so-called Christian nations pursue; and, likewise, the threefold message still remains God’s last
message for the world, despite the course that any member or leader in the movement may take.
However, before we pass on to the next point a word of caution might well be given regarding the
charges that the enemies of the denomination make against various leaders. Many of these charges are a
pure tissue of falsehood, and most of the remainder are based on a gross distortion of facts.
Extreme Position on Testimonies
4. The Testimonies are frequently the pivotal point. The various offshoots may generally be
classed in two opposing groups as regards the writings of Mrs. E. G. White. The first quote the Spirit of
prophecy at great length; the second denounce it as a fraud. The first use the Testimonies because they find
therein certain passages that apparently give support to their charge that the denomination is so sinful that
its members should leave it. The second group denounce the Testimonies as fraudulent in an attempt to
escape the indictment found in those writings against deserters from the faith.
The first group are not consistent, because the very Testimonies which declare the denomination
sinful also affirm that despite this spiritual weakness, God is still with the movement, and will bring it
through to a successful finish, and denounce those who raise the cry, “Come out.” The second group show
the weakness of their charge that the Testimonies are a fraud, by the irrelevant objections they bring forth.
It is possible to bring objections against even the Bible, but they are palpably weak. Thus with the case that
this second group would strive to make out against the Testimonies.
Of those who wrongly quote the Spirit of prophecy, Sister White inquires:
“Those who have proclaimed the Seventh-day Adventist Church as Babylon, have made use of the
‘Testimonies’ in giving their position a seeming support; but why is it that they did not present that which
for years has been the burden of my message, the unity of the church? Why did they not quote the words of
the angel ‘Press together, press together, press together’? Why did they not repeat the admonition and state
the principle, that ‘in union there is strength, in division there is weakness’?” - Testimonies to Ministers,
Page 56.
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Earnestness and Sincerity

5. Great, earnestness and sincerity seem to control them This feature is a source of perplexity to
many. “How,” they ask, “can those people be so earnest and sincere if their teachings are so false?”
Unfortunately, earnestness and sincerity, though they generally accompany a firm belief in anything, do not
thereby prove the belief true. It is the truth of a belief that sanctifies the earnestness, and not the earnestness
that sanctifies and makes true the belief.
The human mind is so constructed that a lie may ultimately be accepted as the truth if there is the
will to believe. This fact is well illustrated by Scripture. “The time comes,” said Christ to His disciples,
“that whosoever kills you will think that he does God service.” John 16:2. This is the choicest example that
could be offered of wrong thinking combined with great earnestness. Further, we are told of a class of
people who, “because they received not the love of the truth,” finally believed “a lie.” 2 Thessalonians
2:10,11. A self-deceived earnest man we may appropriately pity, but we cannot believe. The Spirit of
prophecy declares:
“False teachers may appear to be very zealous for the work of God, and may expend means to
bring their theories before the world and the church; but as they mingle error with truth, their message is
one of deception, and will lead souls into false paths. They are to be met, and opposed, not because they are
bad men, but because they are teachers of falsehood, and are endeavoring to put upon falsehood the stamp
of truth.”-Ibid., p. 55.
Languish and Die

6. These offshoots ultimately languish and die. If, as they claim they are the final “called out” of
God who are to complete the great work begun by this movement, they should grow stronger and more
successful as the years go by. But the reverse is true. God is not the leader of a dying movement. He is
directing a growing and expanding movement in these closing days, for His last message is not to end up in
a corner, but is to be proclaimed mightily in every part of the earth.
Five Positive Facts

Whenever our minds are troubled over this question of counter movements, we should think back
a moment over the characteristics that distinguish them, and then ask ourselves. Is God the author of such
offshoots? To ask the question is to answer it. With that question decided in the negative, we should then
remember these five great positive facts:
1. God has a church on the earth. “God has a church upon the earth, who are His chosen people, who keep
His commandments. He is leading, not stray offshoots, not one here and one there, but a people.”-Ibid., p.
61.
2. The remnant church is not Babylon. “When anyone arises, either among us or outside of us, who is
burdened with a message which declares that the people of God are numbered with Babylon, and claims
that the loud cry is a call to come out of her, you may know that he is not bearing the message of truth.
Receive him not, nor bid him Godspeed; for God has not spoken by him, neither has He given a message to
him, but he has run before he was sent.”-Ibid., p. 41.
3. This advent movement came at exactly the right time in fulfillment of prophecy. If it had come
earlier or later, it could not claim to have arisen in response to prophecy. It was no accident that this
message began in the 1840’s. God started it, and what is more encouraging, we have the promise that He
will carry it through to a glorious conclusion.
4. The offshoots are just so many signs that the end is upon us, for the devil knows of no more
effective way to hinder God’s plan than to attempt to tear down this organization that Heaven has built up
in these last days. Instead of being downcast by these desertions, we should lift up our heads and rejoice,
for our redemption draws nigh.
5. Despite all the weaknesses and mistakes of both leaders and lay members, God still loves and
directs this advent movement.
“God has a people in which all heaven is interested, and they are the one object on earth dear to
the heart of God. Let every one who reads these words give them thorough consideration; for in the name
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of Jesus I would press them home upon every soul.”-Ibid.

“The church, enfeebled and defective, needing to be reproved, warned, and counseled, is the only
object upon earth upon which Christ bestows His supreme regard.” Ibid., p. 49.
Let us, therefore, thank God that He has called us out of darkness into this marvelous light, that He
has placed us with a people who are “dear to the heart of God.”
33. An Answer to the Ex-Adventist’s Charge:

“I Have Been Delivered From Adventism.”
EX-ADVENTIST SOMETIMES DECLARES, “I have been delivered from Adventism.”

Evidently he means lie has been freed from doctrines that blur his spiritual vision and hamper his Christian
progress, and particularly from teachings that throttle his liberty and joy in the gospel. So long as he stays
in the field of generalities it is difficult to answer him, for generalities are like the clouds, vaporous and
constantly changing in position. But he did not come into the advent movement on generalities. He was
instructed on specific doctrines. To these he subscribed on joining the church, and from these, or some part
of them, he must have been “delivered” when lie left us.
A statement of these doctrines is published annually in the official Yearbook under the heading:
“Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists.” This statement consists of twenty-two sections. Let us
examine these beliefs. For brevity’s sake 1 shall summarize. In some instances 1 shall borrow the exact
words of the formal statement, as indicated by quotation marks.
The Doctrines of God and Salvation

1. That the Bible is inspired and contains “an all-sufficient revelation” of God’s will.
2. That “the Godhead, or Trinity” consists of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
3. That “Jesus Christ is very God,” that He also took on Him “the nature of the human family,”
lived a sinless life, died for our offenses, arose, and ascended to heaven “where He ever lives to make
intercession for us.”
4. That salvation is by “the new birth,” that “this comprises an entire transformation of life” by the
power of God through faith in Christ.
5. That baptism “should follow repentance and forgiveness of sins.” That the proper form of
baptism is by immersion.
Does any Christian wish to be delivered from these doctrines? The ex-Adventist will probably say
No, not from these. If he qualifies his statement by saying that he has been delivered from baptism by
immersion, we need only reply that neither our Lord nor the apostles sought deliverance from it. But let us
go on.
The Law and the Sabbath

6. That the Ten Commandments is the moral standard for all men in all ages.
7. That the fourth command of the Ten Commandments “requires the observance of the seventh-
day Sabbath. This holy institution is at the same time a memorial of creation and a sign of sanctification, a
sign of the believer’s rest from his own works of sin, and his entrance into the rest of soul which Jesus
promises to those who come to Him.”
8. That the Ten Commandments points out sin, but cannot save. That God sent His Son to save us
from our sins. That one is justified, not by obedience to the law, but by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
That “this experience is wrought by the Divine agency of the Holy Spirit, who convinces of sin and leads to
the Sin Bearer, inducting the believer into the new-covenant relationship, where the law of God is written
on his heart.”
Does any Christian want to be delivered from these doctrines? If the ex-Adventist still wishes to
be inside the circle of historic Protestantism lie will have to reply, as regards the sixth and eighth points,
that he is in agreement. The creeds of the Reformation churches, and all after them, are too explicit to
permit debate.
But lie will say that lie was delivered from that Saturday Sabbath. Evidently there is something
about the twenty-four hours at the close of the week that is fettering and confining. He was delivered from
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that to keep the first twenty-four hours of the week. I agree there is more laxity about Sunday. But Sunday
keeping ministers quite generally deplore it. Some of them, many of them, even campaign for civil statutes
to enforce stricter Sunday rest. Perhaps the ex-Adventist wishes to be delivered from the truth of creation,
which the seventh day Sabbath memorializes. Many declare that they have been delivered from the old-
fashioned, “unscientific- doctrine of creation, and proudly call themselves Modernists, or liberals.
Adventists do not wish deliverance from this doctrine, on which the whole Bible is reared, and so
we do not wish deliverance from the Sabbath that memorializes creation. We do not wish to be freed from
Genesis, from the Mosaic record that introduces the Scripture record. The record is clear, for all who
believe Genesis, that God made the Sabbath at the end of creation week, in the setting of a perfect world,
by resting on that day and sanctifying and blessing it. Why should we wish deliverance from a day that
connects us with Eden? Why should we wish to be delivered from following the example of the great God?
Why seek deliverance from that which God blessed and set apart as holy?
Isaiah’s View of the Sabbath

Th e prophet Isaiah seems to have held the same view. He is known as the prophet of salvation.
The fifty-third chapter portrays the vicarious suffering of our Lord. The fifty-fourth chapter opens with the
exultant words: “Sing, 0 barren, thou that did not bear,” and goes on to describe the joys of redemption.
The fifty-fifth chapter calls on “every one that thirsts” to come, buy “without money and without price.”
The fifty-sixth chapter declares: “Keep you judgment, and do justice: for My salvation is near to come, and
My righteousness to be revealed. Blessed is the man that does this, and the son of man that lays hold on it;
that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it, and keeps his hand from doing any evil. Also the sons of the
stranger, that join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be His
servants, every one that keeps the Sabbath from polluting it, and takes hold of My covenant; even them will
I bring to My holy mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer.” Isaiah did not think it
incongruous to introduce the Sabbath in the midst of a grand, sweeping portrayal of salvation. And he
declares that the Sabbath keeper will be a “joyful” person.
Going onward, we find Isaiah, in the fifty-seventh chapter, crying out against iniquity and
declaring that God dwells with him that is of a contrite heart. The thought is continued into the fifty-eighth
chapter, where the command is given to “cry aloud,” and “show My people their transgression.” The true
kind of fast is described, not to bow down the head, or to spread sackcloth, but to “deal thy bread to the
hungry,” to house the outcast, and cover the naked. Such a display of practical godliness will cause “thy
light [to] break forth as the morning.” “Then shall thou call, and the Lord shall answer” “And the Lord shall
guide thee continually. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places.” Then follows
immediately this statement regarding the Sabbath:
“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call
the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable. And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways, nor
finding your own pleasure, nor speaking your own words: then shall thou delight thyself in the Lord. And I
will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father:
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”
Isaiah, who unfolds the story of salvation, deliverance from sin, and a program of practical
holiness, places the Sabbath in the midst of the picture. He describes it, not as something to be delivered
from, but as something in which to “delight.”
Our Lord and the Sabbath

When our Lord walked with men He found Himself in controversy with the scribes and Pharisees
concerning the Sabbath. He denounced their man-made commandments that had encrusted the Sabbath, but
He did not denounce the Sabbath. I can imagine the ex-Adventist, if he had lived back there, announcing to
Israel that they were to be delivered from the Sabbath. That would have been the time for Christ to
announce deliverance from the seventh day of the week. No better setting could ever have been found. But
He did not do so. Instead of preaching deliverance from the Sabbath law, He showed the people what was
“lawful” to do on that day, and climaxed it by announcing: “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the
Sabbath.” Mark 2:28. See also Luke 6:1-9.
Isaiah declared that the Sabbath should be considered a “delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable.”
Christ announced Himself Lord of the Sabbath. The ex-Adventist says he has been delivered from the
Sabbath! Adventists find “delight” in it, and seek to honor the Lord of the Sabbath by keeping His day
holy.
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The Nature of Man

9. That God “only hath immortality.” That man is mortal. That immortality is a gift from God that
will be “put on- at Christ’s Second Coming.
10. That the condition of man in death is unconsciousness. That all lie in the grave till the
resurrection.
11. That there is to be a resurrection of the just and the unjust.
12. That the wicked, and Satan with all his angels, will finally be destroyed by fire, and become
ashes under the soles of our feet, so that every taint of sin will be blotted from the universe forever.
Sometimes the ex-Adventist says he has been delivered from these beliefs concerning man and his
final reward. He would rather think that his righteous loved ones have enjoyed the bliss of heaven from the
day of their death. But he must not permit himself to think of his unrighteous relatives, who must be
writhing in torment. The thought that the wicked are to be consumed away, and be as though they had not
been, causes his righteous indignation to kindle. He is happy to be delivered from any idea that the fires of
hell will ever go out, the screams of the damned ever cease, the tragedy of sin ever end. And, of course, in
being delivered from Adventism, he is enjoying greater freedom in Christ, greater happiness in the
Christian way! I can imagine a man’s thinking, as a result of reading certain texts apart from the whole
context of Scripture, that he must believe in an eternally burning hell, and that unrighteous loved ones,
departed, are even now writhing in it. But 1 cannot imagine his proclaiming that in turning to that view
from the Adventist teaching he was therefore gaining greater freedom and joy in the Lord!
The Sanctuary Doctrine

We continue our study of the tenets of our faith. We believe-
13. That the prophecy of Daniel 8:14 ended in 1844, and marked the beginning of the investigative
judgment.
14. That the true sanctuary is in heaven. That Christ is our minister there, carrying on a work of
which the Jewish service was a type. That the cleansing of the sanctuary is a work of judgment
corresponding to the typical service on the Day of Atonement. That the close of this investigative judgment
marks the close of human probation.
15. That God sent a warning message of the judgment and the nearness of the advent in the form
of three angels’ messages, and that these messages bring to view a work of reform to prepare men for the
advent.
16. That the time of the cleansing of the sanctuary is a work of judgment, first on the dead, then on
the living, and “determines who of the millions sleeping in the dust of the earth are worthy of a part in the
first resurrection, and who of its living multitudes are worthy of translation.”
The ex-Adventist may say that he has happily been delivered from such doctrines as these. He will
tell us that he has no time for the idea that a special investigation must be made before anyone is accounted
worthy of heaven. He speaks militantly of the “finished work of Christ” on the cross, as though the
Adventist doctrine somehow minimized the sacrifice of our Lord on Golgotha. But, really, what is he
delivered from? And what different view of the plan of salvation provides, him greater joy and liberty?
We present Christ as having accomplished a divine work of sacrificial dying on that solemn Friday
nineteen hundred years ago. We believe this has been followed by a work of high priestly intercession by
Him, that through the centuries He has been ministering His shed blood in our behalf. We are ever
conscious of the price that was paid for our redemption and of the ever present nature of the divine service
instituted to provide a remedy for sin. We also believe that inasmuch as the heavenly service is the antitype
of the earthly, there must come a final climax to the work of intercession and a cleansing of the sanctuary.
We rejoice that God will bring the service to an orderly end and make pronouncement as to who shall be
accounted worthy to receive of the reward of heaven. Surely it is reasonable to hold that God makes
decisions on all cases before coming to execute judgment on all men. That is exactly what is involved in the
idea of an investigative judgment.
But the ex-Adventist wishes to be delivered from all this. He wishes to think only of a finished
work on Calvary, lie declares. And how does he have greater liberty in the gospel by doing this? Why is it
more joyous and soul-satisfying to restrict one’s spiritual view wholly to Golgotha? The writer of Hebrews
did not. He sought to carry the thoughts of the believers to the glorious ministry of our Lord after His
priceless sacrifice on the cross. We would do likewise by our preaching. We would not set up artificial
contrasts. We exalt the cross, and we do so partly by exalting the work of our Lord after the cross. From
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first to last we attribute all to Christ. We see Him in the center of the investigative judgment, for the Father
has delivered all judgment into His hands. We see in Him our only hope, in His shed blood our only means
of cleansing. Has the ex-Adventist found more than this by leaving Adventism?
Simplicity, Modesty, Abstinence

17. That the child of God should stand apart from the ways of the world, particularly as regards
amusements. That he should dress modestly. That he should abstain from liquor and tobacco and every
practice that defiles the body and soul.
Some ex-Adventists have rejoiced in deliverance from this tenet. They do not wish to be fettered
in matters of amusement, dress, or diet. This is understandable. But what is not understandable is that
anyone should say that in being delivered from this doctrine of Adventism he was gaining greater joy in the
Lord!
Tithing and Spiritual Gifts

18. That a tithe of our increase belongs to the Lord and that besides this we should give cheerfully
of offerings, for we are but stewards of the treasures in our hands.
There are ex-Adventists who sigh a deep sigh of relief to be delivered from this tenet. They do not
wish to set apart one tenth of their income for God and then add offerings thereto. This is all
understandable. The Scriptures are filled with descriptions of the natural selfishness of the human heart.
But we cannot understand how a person finds greater joy in the Lord by eliminating tithe and reducing his
offerings. A host of Sunday keeping ministers urge tithing on their members and assure them there is joy in
such a plan. There is. Adventists know from experience.
Spiritual Gifts
19. “That God has placed in His church the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as enumerated in 1 Corinthians
12 and Ephesians 4. That these gifts operate in harmony with the divine principles of the Bible, and are
given for the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ.”
Ex-Adventists do not wish to be delivered from the general belief in the gifts of the Spirit as this
statement sets forth. But they often express joy over being delivered from a certain specific application of
this belief. One of the gifts of the Spirit is the gift of prophecy. Adventists believe that this gift has been
displayed in the life and writings of Ellen G. White. And how are those writings distinguished? Do they set
forth a circumspect view of religious living, or do they advocate fanatical religious habits that lead to
excesses? Do they uphold the Scriptures as the very Word of God, the supreme authority in our lives, or do
they minimize the Bible or spiritualize it away? Do those writings uphold the great verities of revelation,
such as the deity of our Lord and His sacrificial death and literal resurrection, or do they minimize or
undermine them?
To anyone who has read Mrs. White’s writings the answer is evident. Even her critics will
generally agree that her writings promote the highest code of holy living in the setting of the Bible as the
very voice of God to us, and that her writings call for constant sacrificial liberality in order that we may
complete a task for God and be ready to meet Him in peace at His appearing. Certainly no unbiased person
could make any ‘other appraisal.
We can easily understand how an ex-Adventist might find a certain sense of relief in being
“delivered” from the belief that Mrs. White’s writings are a manifestation of the gift of the Spirit of
prophecy-he need not live so highly, he need not sacrifice so deeply, he need not take the Scriptures of God
so seriously. But we cannot understand how that would give him a sense of greater joy in the Lord!
The Second Advent and the New Earth

20. “That the Second Coming of Christ is the great hope of the church, the grand climax of the
gospel and plan of salvation.” That this coming will be personal, and literal, and that it “is near, even at the
doors,” though the exact time cannot be known.
21. That for a thousand years after the Second Advent, the saints will be in heaven and the earth
will lie desolate under the judgments of God. That at the end of that time the saints will return with their
Lord, and fire from God destroy forever the wicked, turning them to ashes, and purging this earth.
22. “That God will make all things new. The earth, restored to its pristine beauty, will become
forever the abode of the saints of the Lord.”
The ex-Adventist may feel relief at being delivered from the belief that Christ is soon coming to
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solve the tragedy of a world that seems to be headed for the third world war and mutual suicide. He may
find satisfaction in the realization that he no longer believes that Heaven’s purging fires will completely
destroy every trace of sin and unrepentant sinners. He may feel much better pleased to think that in some
segregated area of the universe the horrible thing called sin will be present never ending in the person of its
writhing, tortured, flaming devotees. He may even feel relieved that he no longer believes that God will
recreate this earth a perfect and eternal abode for redeemed men and women. We can understand how he
might so change his theological thinking that he would feel a sense of deliverance from these doctrines in
which he no longer believed. But we do not understand how he would thereby find greater joy in the Lord!
And now this comment in conclusion. Genuine joy in religious living is not revealed by noisy amens and
bodily gesticulations, but by the zest and enthusiasm with which a person engages in the religious life. The
psalmist was “glad” for the invitation to go to the “house of the Lord.” The genuinely joyful Christian will
be found regularly in attendance at divine services. If he truly loves his Lord he will give liberally. If he is
filled with joy at the realization of what Christ has done for him, he will gladly devote hours of his time to
missionary service.
Now as to church attendance, liberality, and missionary activity, how do we stand by comparison
with other religious bodies? If we may judge by the way in which Adventists are often set forth by the
leaders of other churches as worthy of emulation in these matters. We evidently do not suffer by
comparison! But it is our doctrines that make us what we are religiously. We do not wish to be “delivered”
from these beliefs, we find in them great joy in the Lord.
34. The Everlasting Gospel

It is suggested that the order of Bible lessons might be changed by the Bible teacher, taking into
consideration the background of his student.
1. THE WONDERFUL AND INSPIRED WORD OF GOD

INTRODUCTION
God uses the weak means of this world to bring about great results: a cross, a book, a man. He
chose to give us a book that would capture the mind of every thinking man and conquer the world. A small
group of men, armed with the Gospel of Salvation, permeated the Roman Empire; before Christ returns He
will bring about a similar revival before our very eyes.
Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” Matthew
24:35. He also said, “My words are spirit and life.” “The words that 1 speak unto you, they are spirit, and
they are life” John 6:63.
1. THE BIBLE, AN INDESTRUCTIBLE BOOK

A. The BIBLE, the BOOK of books, still stands unchanged since Moses wrote the first passages.
Although the language has been modernized, no other changes have been made. The Book still stands
unchanged and unrefuted. Changing times, passing ages, the rise and fall of nations, have not influenced the
Bible. On the contrary, the Bible predicts the events of history and these predictions happen at the
appointed time and place. No wonder there is no other book on the market so controversial as the Bible. It
is beloved because it reveals a way of escape from destruction; it teaches righteousness; and it throws light
on the narrow way that leads to heaven. It is hated because it condemns sin, falsehood, hypocrisy and
praises humility, honesty, godliness. It reflects justice by taking sides with the oppressed, the poor, the
persecuted and promises judgment on the exploiters and tyrants.
B. The Bible was condemned not only by pagan emperors, but also by the medieval church rulers.
Thousands were condemned to death for reading it. Until Wycliffe translated it into English and Luther into
German, the Bible was not read in the language of the people for nearly 1000 years.
C. Wycliffe was persecuted for his crime of translating the Bible. Tyndales translation of the Bible
was also condemned and the manuscripts were gathered and burned, while he himself suffered a martyr’s
death. The possession of the Bible meant torture and death to millions. But God did not allow Satan and
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man to eliminate the revelation of Himself; through the printing press His book achieved a wide
clistfibution among all people; the influence of the Bible spread throughout all nations and played a great
part in the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the liberation of the European nations.
D. Critics have tried to discredit God’s Word by ridiculing it, declaring it to be a collection of
folklore, fables and myths. But some modern scientists involuntarily supported the claims of the scriptures
and refuted these vicious attacks. The findings of astronomers, archeologists, geologists, and astronauts
confirmed the statements contained therein as true. The slabs of stone unearthed by archeologists cried out
and certified the prophecies contained in the Bible. (See Tell el-Amarna letters. the Ras Shamra Cuneiform.
the Gezer Tablet, etc.)
2. GOD’S INSPIRED WORD

A. Historical Background
1. For the first 2,500 years of this world’s history there was no written revelation of God. The
patriarchs communicated their knowledge of God to the succeeding generations by word of mouth. God’s
revelations were expressed for the first time in written form by Moses.
2. The Holy Scriptures were written in the period from 1500 BC to 100 AD in 66 sections, by a
variety of writers living at different periods under different circumstances. Yet the Bible shows an unusual
unity and harmony. Through the 66 books runs a common theme. It is the plan of redemption which God
has devised for man. All these books speak of one Person, the Savior of mankind, the Messiah. There are
no contradictions among the writers. This unity testifies to a divine inspiration. It witnesses to the fact that
the Bible has been prepared under divine direction.
B. The Bible Itself Claims to be inspired by God.

1. All Scriptures are inspired by God. 2 Timothy 3:16.
2. No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. 2 Peter 1:20.
3. Holy men were moved by the Holy Spirit in writing the Scriptures. 2 Peter 1:214
4. “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me.” 2 Samuel. 212.
5. The inspiration of the Almighty gives understanding. Job. 318.
6. The Holy Spirit teaches. 1 Corinthians 2:13.
7. The Lord says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8,9.
Our finite minds can never fully comprehend the expressions and works of the infinite God. To the most
intellectual and educated minds, God and His words are still veiled in mystery. Romans 11:33.
We cannot penetrate God’s secrets by human wisdom. Deuteronomy 29:29. The sacred Scriptures
contain revelations that extend beyond the times of human history. They reach into eternity. God does not
always give us a full explanation for His actions. He expects us to trust Him, to exercise faith in Him, to
realize that He is prompted in everything by love and justice. He is Truth itself.
D. Skeptics reject the Word of God because they cannot comprehend it. How can our small
intellects fathom the most complex mind in the universe? By making us sinful, Satan has succeeded in
weakening and perverting our power of reasoning, and our imagination. Without the aid of the Spirit of
God, our minds remain eternally frustrated. The Cross, which deals with the deep humiliation of the Son of
God, is a total mystery and unexplainable to the man who relies only on logic; its meaning is so deep that
angels do not fully understand it. Even they desire to know more about it.
E. In God are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And throughout eternity, saved
men, living in the presence of God, will learn and be taught by Him. They will never exhaust the wisdom of
God, because He is infinite.
F. We are the pupils, He is the Teacher. Job. 36:22. We should be willing for the lord to teach us
while we listen. We are to sit at His feet with a childlike, thirsting spirit. The only way we will ever
understand the Holy Scriptures is to allow the same Holy Spirit Who inspired them to illumine our own
minds. John 14:26.
G. Seek Gods wisdom to understand the Bible. When we are perplexed by events in our lives, or
by statements in the Bible, we should turn to Christ by faith and ask for an explanation. He promised to
reveal these to us when we are united with Him, the Source of all wisdom. On the other hand, many
questions will only be resolved when He comes to take to heaven those who believe and trust in Him. In the
meantime, let the Word of God stand as it is. let us not tamper with it. It is inspired by Him.
H. Perverted minds turn the truth of God into a lie. Many give twisted explanations to Bible texts.
The only safe way to study the Bible is to allow a number of related texts to explain themselves. (1
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Corinthians 2:13; Isaiah 28:1-3) The Bible explains itself. If we take all the texts on a particular subject, we
are bound to find the meaning God intended; then we will understand what God means.
3. WORD OF GOD ALONE IS THE FOUNDATION FOR FAITH AND CONDUCT

A. Our Daily Food and Inspiration-Matthew 4:4. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us.” John 1:14. This is said of Jesus Christ, but it also may be said of the Holy Scriptures. In Christ, the
divine and human were united. This unity also exists in the Bible; it was not dictated word by word, but the
truths and principles explained therein are recorded in the language of men who were chosen by God. The
Bible contains all the information that is necessary for salvation.
B. The Holy Spirit, speaking through the Bible, never leads a man into extremes of indifference or
fanaticism. A true Christian is a balanced individual. The Holy Scripture is the test for all doctrines and
teachings. Isaiah 8:20.
C. In the great confusion caused by Satan today, the Word of God alone is to be the sure
foundation for our faith and conduct. If our beliefs are anchored in the Bible, the last awful deceptions of
Satan will not overthrow us and cause us to make shipwreck of our faith. Matthew 24:24; Revelation 12:17.
2. THE WORD OF GOD IS TRUE, SEARCH IT!

INTRODUCTION
The human being is religiously inclined; he has a spiritual disposition and by necessity must
worship a person or an object. Whatever man loves, adores, and worships most becomes his god. Such
worship of God can arise from gratitude for the gifts of God, from fear of his power and judgments, or from
adoration and love for Him as a Person.
1. SOURCES OF RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES

A. The sources of human religions and philosophies are the following: traditions, ancient
philosophies, sciences, occult sources, human wisdom and doctrines, the powers of nature, mysticism.
B. Man seeks to know God chiefly in two ways:
1. Through his intellect and imagination. He makes his own image of God and worships it. This is
the case of the primitive religions as well as that of the philosophic concepts of God today. These have
produced many gods and idols, and much spiritual blindness and moral decadence.
2. Through revelation or knowledge that has come directly from God. This is the only true way.
We must find God’s way of manifesting Himself to man. He has revealed to us how we can approach Him
and how we should worship Him. This is true religion. The Bible expresses the Jewish and the Christian
faith which are one in substance since they proclaim the same God, the same Gospel, the same Redeemer,
and the same plan of salvation for all humanity.
C. God manifests Himself in different ways:
1. In nature.
2. In the soul and mind of man.
3. In life and history.
4. In the Holy Scriptures.
5. In Jesus Christ.
D. God will manifest Himself to all who seek Him and wish to worship Him. And none is so blind as he
who refuses to seek God. Romans 1:19,20.
2. THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

A. Of what do the Scriptures consist?
1. Old Testament Luke 24:44, 45,
2. New Testament 2 Peter 3:15, 16.
3. The whole Scripture is binding. 2 Timothy 3:16.
B. How Did We Receive the Books of the Scripture?
1. The Spirit of God inspired them. 2 Timothy 3:16.
2. Through the Spirit of Christ. 1 Peter 1:10, 11.
3. Through holy men of God. 2 Peter 1:21.
4. Through the angels of God. Revelation 1:11.
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C. For what Purpose are the Scriptures Given?

1. To make wise, for reproof, for correction, for instruction, to make perfect. 2 Timothy 3:14-17.
2. For learning, patience, comfort, hope. Romans 15:4.
3. To know Christ. John 5:39.
4. To know the truth. John 17:17.
D. How Can We Understand the Scriptures?
1. When we seek and search them, as after treasures. Acts 17:11; Proverbs 13-5.
2. When the Holy Spirit teaches us, and enlightens the mind. 1 Corinthians 2:11-14.
3. When men of God are guiding us. Matthew 28:19, 20
4. The only true interpretation of the Scriptures is when the Scripture interprets itself through
another passage (1 Corinthians 2:13; Isaiah 28:13). The consensus of the texts that speak of the
same subject give the true meaning.
3. THE HOLY SPIRIT HELPS US TO UNDERSTAND

A. Jesus Christ quoted from the Old Testament. By doing this He proved from the Scriptures the
doctrines of the New Testament and what His mission was in the world.
B. The Holy Spirit inspired men to write the Bible. 2 Peter 1:21. The deep spiritual meaning of the
Word of God can only be understood with the help of the Holy Spirit when we sit at the feet of Jesus as the
disciples did, thirsting after knowledge. Understanding will not come when we approach God with a proud,
skeptical and critical heart.
1. The Holy Spirit leads me.
a. When we ask for the gifts of the Spirit of God and submit to Him our minds and wills. Luke 11:13.
b. When we allow the Holy Spirit of God to lead us and control us daily. Romans 8:14.
c. When we are willing to obey His prompting and commands. Acts 5:32; John 7:17; Psalms 119:11.
4. GOD’S PLAN PORTRAYED IN THE BIBLE

The Holy Scriptures portray the schedule of God’s plan for mankind and of coming events. They
are the standard of our moral life. They provide daily spiritual and intellectual food for the children of God.
Matthew 4:4. it is the only sure and perfect truth guaranteed by God. Sooner would the firmament collapse
than the Word of God fail us. John 7:38.
3. FULFILLED PROPHECIES TESTIFY OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE

1. MANY PROVISIONS FOR MANKIND IN GOD’S PLAN OF SALVATION
A. Agreement Between the Father and the Son.

“He shall be a Priest upon His throne and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
Zechariah 6:13. The plan of salvation for mankind was devised and agreed upon in a secret council of God,
the Father, and God, the Son. That plan called for the redemption of mankind, for the payment of the
penalty of their disobedience which is death, and for making them legally righteous before God and the
universe.
B. God’s plan provided for the following events:

1. Possibility of a global rebellion of men against God under Satan’s leadership.
2. Allowing Satan to rule the world for a specific period of time.
3. The salvation of sinners through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
4. Unmasking on the cross Satan’s schemes before the universe.
5. Judgment of mankind.
6. The second glorious coming of Christ as King.
7. The resurrection and translation of the saved.
8. The destruction of sin and sinners by fire.
9. Final victory over Satan.
10. The creation of a new earth as the dwelling place of the Godhead and of redeemed mankind.
2. THE DIVINE TIME TABLE OF PROPHECY
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A. This amazing plan has a divine time schedule. Everything Will occur in as precise a way as the
galaxies revolving around the throne of God. From time to time God chose to reveal His plans to His
prophets as time and circumstance demanded; He desired that no one should be ignorant of His purpose.
Amos 1:17.
B. Prophecy is like the beam of the lighthouse shining in the darkness, it shows us that God is at
work even when we are confused.
1. God desires us to be acquainted with His plans. Jeremiah 313; Deuteronomy 29:29
2. A chain of events in God’s prophecies enables every generation to ascertain the link of time in which it
stands.
C. These are the main lines of prophecies.
1. The first and second coming of the Son of God and the purpose of these two appearances. Hebrews 9:28.
2. The birth, life and death of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, when He came to redeem lost mankind.
a. The birth. Micah 5:2; Psalm 40:6-8.
b. His entry into Jerusalem. Zechariah 9:9.
c. His crucifixion. Psalm 22:16-18; Psalm 69:20,21; Isaiah 53:12. Zechariah 12:10.
d. The time of His crucifixion, Daniel 9:25-27.
3. The calling and commission of Israel as His witness among the heathen nations.
4. Different events occurring among the heathen nations. (for example, the rise and fall of the four world
empires, the ten kingdoms, and their doom, etc.) Daniel 2:31-45. Daniel 7:23,24.
5. Different time prophecies for the Canaanite nations, for Babylon, for Israel, for the death of the Messiah,
for the time of judgment in the heavenly sanctuary. Genesis 15:13; Daniel 8:14; Daniel 9:24. The time of
the ruling of the anti-Christ, the time of the Saracens and Turks, the time for the beginning of the last three
messages to mankind. Daniel 7:25; Revelation 9:5, 15; Revelation 14:6, 7.
6. The great controversy between Christ and Satan, the last combination of anti-Christian powers which are
identified with these symbols: the beast, the false prophet, and the dragon. Revelation 16:13, 14.
7. Events and signs before Christ’s return. Matthew 24; Luke 21:25-36; Mark 13:33-37.
3. HISTORY IS FULFILLED PROPHECY

A. The Bible not only recorded, but also predicted the events of history. It is an exciting study to
compare Bible prophecies with world and church history. It is amazing to find the literal fulfillment in
history, of divine prophecies recorded in Scripture. Who else but God could foretell events with such-
accuracy centuries before they occur? Isaiah 46:10.
B. Jesus Christ, who walked on the troubled waters of Galilee, is ruling today over the turbulent
sea of events which Satan has brought about. We ore living in times when men’s hearts fail them for fear.
However, God is in complete control, and is fulfilling His plans. He who dares to prophesy must be able to
control the shaping of history. Only God can do this without making a mistake. Above the human strife, He
guides the affairs of mankind, overruling the strategy of His enemies. All that He has foretold in the Bible
will be fulfilled at the appointed time.
Only in the Bible will one find the correct interpretations of the great events in history; only there
is the curtain lifted to afford a view of behind the scene happenings; only the Bible student has the privilege
of seeing God in action.
4. GOD’S GREAT WITNESSES

INTRODUCTION
During the French Revolution members of the revolutionary forces went from village to village
destroying churches and all objects of worship. They told the people that religion would soon be
exterminated from the minds of all people, leaving only a faint memory of God. An old peasant in one of
the villages answered them in this way. “You may destroy our churches, but you will leave us the stars.”
No one has been able to refute the testimony given by the stars to the greatness of God, our
Creator. Every night they appear in the firmament and quietly tell their story. Above the earth, forever
beyond the reach of man, God has placed the stars as eternal witnesses of His presence, of His majesty, of
His wisdom, and of His love. Paul tells us that God’s power and divinity are clearly revealed through His
created works so that disbelieving man, even without the written Word, is without excuse. Ram. 1:20. A
few years ago the late Henry Norris Russell, former director of Princeton Observatory, said, 1n these
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troublous days, when so much seems to be shaken, happy is the man whose faith is fixed on the everlasting
God revealed in His works no less than in His written Word.” Two thousand five hundred years ago the
Psalmist wrote:
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day
pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words: their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.” Psalm 19:1-4.R5V
1. THE BIBLE SPEAKS OF THREE HEAVENS. 2 Corinthians 12:24.

A. The first heaven is the atmospheric heaven in which the clouds move and the birds fly.
Jeremiah 4:25; Psalm 147:8.
B. The second heaven is the celestial heavens consisting of the sun, the moon, and the stars.
Exodus 32:13; Isaiah 13:10; Psalm 8:3,4. These are the heavens about which the Psalmist is speaking in the
quotation above, and which we shall consider briefly in the present study.
C. The third heaven is the abode of God. 2 Chronicles 6:21.
2. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE UNIVERSE.

A. The number of stars.
1. On a clear moonless night David, the shepherd boy, could behold in the Syrian skies two
thousand tiny bright gems, the stars of heaven. wrote, Impressed by their beauty and awed by their
numbers, he wrote, “What is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou does care for
him.” Psalm 8:4 RSV.
2. But it was not until 1609 when Galileo invented the telescope that man really began to see the
universe. The few thousand stars known to ancient man were soon increased to tens of thousands and then
to hundreds of thousands, until the universe known to man fifty years ago contained some 100,000,000,000
stars.
3. In the 1920’s astronomical studies mode it clear that certain nebulas which appeared through the
telescopes to be fuzzy, poorly-defined, extended objects, were not stars or gigantic gas clouds in interstellar
space, but were other universes; like our own universe, they contained tens to hundreds of billions of stars
and were at unbelievable distances from us. Subsequent studies have revealed more and more of these
“universes,” now known as galaxies, until at present it is estimated that there are at least 500,000,000 of
them within reach of the great 200-inch Mt. Palomar telescope. The number of known galaxies seems to
depend only on the limits of man’s ability to see into space.
4. “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that brings out their host
by number: he calls them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one
fails.” Isaiah 40:26.
B. Dimensions of Space.
1. If man were to travel at 25,000 miles per hour, approximately the maximum velocity now
attainable by rockets, he could reach the moon in ten hours and the sun in about six months. To reach the
nearest star would require 108,000 years.
2. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year at a velocity of 186,000 miles per
second. Even at this tremendous speed it takes four years for light from the nearest star to reach the earth.
3. Most of the stars in our galaxy are hundreds or thousands of light years away. Rigel, one of the
bright stars of the winter sky, is 1600 light years from the earth. The light which 1 see tonight when 1 look
at Rigel left that star in the middle of the fourth century. The man who looks at the length, the breadth and
the depth of the night sky is gazing along corridors of time. He sees pinpoints of light shining from stars
which even within his own galaxy are so distant that they have moved millions of miles from their apparent
positions by the time their light reaches him. He sees them as they were ten, a hundred, or a thousand years
before. Indeed, some of them may have expired centuries ago.
4. Distances between galaxies are measured in millions of light years. The Great Spiral Nebula in
Andromeda, one of our nearest galactic neighbors, is 1,500,000 light years away. The most remote galaxies
are 7,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 light years distant. The total volume of space they occupy is over 2
quadrillion times that occupied by our own galaxy-itself thought to be the entire universe 50 years ago.
5. Yet there is no indication that man has reached the edges of space. The depth to which he has
been able to probe into the cosmos is limited only by the limitations of his instruments. For all we know the
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incredible distances that man has seen may be only the beginnings of an unfathomable universe.
3. RELATIONSHIP OF THE EARTH TO THE UNIVERSE

A. The Solar System
1. The earth is one of nine major planets which, with their 31 accompanying moons, with
thousands of tiny planets called asteroids, with hundreds of thousands of comets and limitless numbers of
meteors, or shooting stars, all circle the sun and form one great system called the Solar System.
2. The sun dwarfs all the rest of the bodies in the Solar System as is evident from the fact that it
contains 99.9 per cent of all of the material in the system. It is more than one million times as large as the
earth.
3. The size of the Solar System may be seen from the. fact that while the earth, the third planet in
order of distance from the sun, is 93,000,000 miles from the sun, Pluto, the most remote planet, is 40 times
as far away. Indeed Pluto is so far away that from its position the, sun appears only as a very bright star in
the heavens.
B. The Milky Way Galaxy

1. Our sun is a star and, like all of the stars that can be seen with the unaided eye and like most of
millions of stars which are observed and photographed with telescopes and cameras, it is a member of the
Milky Way Galaxy.
2. Although the sun because of its size reduces a planet like the earth into little more than an
insignificant speck of dust, it is by no, means a giant of the stellar system. Betelgeuse and Antares, for
example are millions of times larger than our sun.
3. When we speak of the size of the Milky Way Galaxy we must again use light years as our unit
of measurement, for our Galaxy is a giant elliptical pinwheel 100,000 light years in diameter. All 100
billion of are revolving about the galactic center. The sun is 30,000 light years from the center and, with its
retinue of attendant planets, is racing in its galactic orbit at the rate of 200 miles per second. Never the less
it requires about 200 million years for the sun to complete one revolution about the center of the galaxy.
4. It the center of the galaxy occupying a fixed position in space? The universe is dynamic; every
galaxy is moving away from every other galaxy at rates which are as phenomenal as are their distances
apart. This is the expanding universe; the most remote galaxies and the. Milky Way art moving away from
each other at unbelievable rates of 60,000 or more miles per second.
5. The earth rotates on its axis and revolves annually about the sun. With all the other bodies of the
Solar System it is making a gigantic revolution about the galactic center and with the rest of the Milky Way
Galaxy it is racing through space at speeds which may approximate a third of the velocity of light.
6. Four hundred years ago man took a giant step forward in his understanding of the universe
when he recognized he, could no longer hold on to the belief that the earth was the center of creation. From
that moment to the present the dimensions of the universe have continued to grow by giant steps as man’s
knowledge has increased. But with this growth, the position of the earth has been steadily reduced in
significance until today there are no adjectives to describe adequately its minuteness in the vast realms of
the cosmos.
7. Further, it seems certain that among all of the, almost limitless number of stars there must be
untold numbers of inhabited planets, so that not only has the earth as an astronomical body been essentially
annihilated, but man himself has been reduced to insignificance. We must say with David, “When 1
consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou has ordained; what is man
that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visits him? And with John, “Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” Psalm 8:3,4; 1 John
3:1.
4. CHRIST AS CREATOR
A. Before anything was made, only the Godhead existed (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The
Godhead created time, space, matter, energy, and all living beings. They were all made by the “Word of
God.” John 1:1-3,14. God is not only all powerful but is also the essence of love. He longs to share what He
owns. At the same time, He yearns to be loved in return. For this reason He created the universe and its
inhabitants. For this reason He desired His created beings to be intelligent and endowed with free will. He
hoped that every living being would choose to love Him and express his gratitude to Him for His infinite
goodness. Isaiah 45:18.
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B. The “Word of God” or Jesus Christ, is the Creator of the earth and the cosmos by the command
of God the Father. 1 Corinthians 8:6; Hebrews 1:1,2. Jesus Christ is the Creator through whom and for
whom everything exists. He is also the upholder of our creation. Colossians 1:15-17; Hebrews 1:1-3. Christ
numbered the stars and constellations. Isaiah 40:26. We find a number of references in the Bible to His
creative work: Job 38:4,7,31-33; Job 26:7; Psalm 33:6-9.
5. CHRIST AS RE-CREATOR AND REDEEMER

A. The significance of the Cross for the Whole Universe.
The marvelous work of creation is only overshadowed by Christ’s redemptive act on the cross.
Both have deep significance for every living being in the universe.
1. Christ’s last words 1t is finished” before His death were directed to God the Father and to all
living beings in the universe who have not fallen to the temptations of Satan. John 19:30. It indicated that
his work of atonement as a sacrifice had been completed.
2. Christ’s words “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” (John 12:32)
were not only directed to us but to the living beings inhabiting the millions of worlds dispersed throughout
the cosmos.
According to the Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 5, page 1024, the word “Men” is
supplied, and its inclusion limits the application of the verse to members of the human family only. It
should be omitted, for not only were members of the human race drawn to Christ by the sacrifice of
Himself, but angels, and the inhabitants of the other worlds, were drawn to Him anew by the demonstration
of the sacrificial love of God. See Colossians 1:20.
3. Christ unmasked and triumphed over God’s arch-enemy Satan, and revealed his rebellious nature to all
living beings in the universe. Colossians 2:15.
B. Christ reconciled all unfallen beings to God. Colossians 1:20.

1. The entire universe will pay homage to Jesus Christ. Philippians 2:9-11.
2. Jesus Christ was exalted and crowned before the whole universe. Revelation 5:11-13. Every living
creature in the cosmos is praising God. Only on this earth are there men who withhold praise and worship
from Him. Romans 1:20.
6. LET US WORSHIP CHRIST AS CREATOR AND REDEEMER

A. Let us reflect and meditate upon His perfect and majestic creation.
1. Why has God allowed us in these last decades, through our wonderful instruments, to scan as
through an open window His infinite universe? Since we are living in a disordered and sinful world, He
permitted us to reflect on His pure and majestic Creation in order to awaken in us a deep longing to go
there, and to meet Him some day.
2. If only one planet in every galaxy were inhabited, then at least five hundred million planets
would be inhabited because so many galaxies are known. Nehemiah 9:6.
3. With our little brain, we cannot grasp such a complicated and complex universe, much less its
Creator and lord. By faith only can we understand and know Him. Hebrews 11.3, 6. Shall we not bow our
heads and worship Him, our most Wonderful Maker and Redeemer!
5. CREATION OR EVOLUTION?
INTRODUCTION
No human being was present when our solar system came into being; human beings witnessed
neither creation nor the evolutionary process. Every man is compelled to decide for himself whether he will
accept the explanation of the Holy Scriptures regarding origins of life, plants and animals and indeed all
matter. Let us examine the Bible as an interpreter of nature.
1. THE BIBLE AND CREATION

A. All of nature (mineral, vegetable and animal kingdom) is ruled by strict, precise laws. It is only
natural that we assume that there is an intelligent being behind these laws. There is an unusual harmony in
them and it does not seem reasonable to assert that they have come into existence by change or have
developed through a process that would deny a Creator the glory due Him. Recent discoveries testify to the
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fact that the structure and physiology of an individual is governed by the DNA and RNA molecules.
Through the creation of these giant Molecules the Creator endowed all living creatures with characteristics
that places them within taxonomic groups and made it possible for them to vary within the limits of Genesis
Kinds.
B. Creation cannot be understood by logic, only by faith. Hebrews 11:1
1. Faith in God is more than human knowledge. Hebrews 11:1; 2 Corinthians 4:18.
2. God must be an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Person to be able to create matter out of
nothing. Mark 10:27; Psalm 33:6,9.
C. God Created the earth. Genesis 1:1, 26.

1. The son of God created all things in the heavens and on earth. Colossians 1:16,17. He upholds them all.
Hebrews 1: 2.
2. He created man in His own image and for His own companionship.
3. Every creation or creature testifies of its creator. Psalm 19:1,2. Romans 1:20.
D. God promised us a new earth. Isaiah 65: 17; 2 Peter 3:11-13.

1. This present earth is under the curse of sin and death, and is hastening to its final destiny.
Isaiah 24:6,19,20.
2. The new earth, more glorious than our present earth will become the center of the universe. It
will be the dwelling place of the Godhead (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) and redeemed mankind. Revelation
21:1, 3, 7.
3. The whole cosmos is waiting with us for the day when God and the redeemed mankind will live
forever on the new earth. Romans 8: 19-23.
2. NATURE IS UNDERSTOOD THROUGH SCRIPTURES

A. The Bible is the only written record in existence that reveals to man the origin of the world and
life itself.
1. Throughout the centuries man has attempted in vain to understand the origin of the planets, the
world and its creatures. Great intellects of the past have observed and conjectured concerning their origin.
2. Modern science continues to speculate in an attempt to explain the origin of life. In trying to
interpret nature purely on the basis of observation and logic, man has been led down many and varied
philosophical paths and he has become entangled in vague theories.
B. The Holy Scriptures have stood the test of time.

1. Through the centuries the Bible has been the one source of Truth that illuminated a clear path through the
maze of fables and myths. it has been the best selling book in existence and the most widely read.
2. In our modern day the Bible continues to be the best selling book and continues to open to modern man,
as no other source can, the Truth regarding the origin of the world and the origin of plants and animals.
3. The seeker after truth concerning origins will find that the Bible is the true interpreter of nature because
the Author of the Holy Scriptures and the Creator of all things is one and the same.
C. The Origin and Destiny of the Major Groups of Animals and Plants
1. The origin of the major groups of plants and animals is no problem to the Bible student for it is clearly
pointed out in Genesis 1:24 that the earth is to be populated by creatures that bring forth after their own
kind. This insures that the major groups of plants and animals will remain distinct.
2. The fossils dug from the ground have been assigned to their respective taxonomic groups, the same
groups as living plants and animals. This proves that these groups have always been distinct according to
Genesis 1:24. Examples of these distinct groups are the dog-like animals, the horse-like animals, the cow-
like animals. They were created with the capacity to vary within their groups.
3. Life comes from Life. The science of embryology testifies to the fact that only life can give rise to
another living creature. Science has never discovered the source of this life. Only the Scriptures reveal this
information.
3. NATURAL SELECTION UNDERSTOOD THROUGH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES

A. Variation or hybridization in the living creatures.
1. There are variations within all species of animals and plants. For example there are many varieties of
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dogs, cats, legumenous plants. Each variety or strain of dog has come from a parent stalk. If different
strains are allowed to interbreed they will revert back to wild type, such as the wolf.
Variations occur in nature according to Mendel’s Laws. The statement “after his kind” implies that
there are laws governing the heredity of animals and plants. These lows of heredity were discovered by
Gregor Mendel in his experiments with cross fertilization of peas in 1860. These lows show that nature
reproduces parental characteristics according to definite precise mathematical proportion for dominant and
recessive characters. For instance if a red snapdragon and a white snapdragon are crossed-fertilized, the
first generation of hybrids will be pink. If these are fertilized by each other, the second will be white, pink
and red. The white will always breed pure white, the red will always breed pure red, but the pink are
hybrids, and will continue to reproduce in the same ratio of white, pink and red.
We also however find in nature the phenomenon called genetic crossing-over which alters the
ratios slightly but this is precise and can be predicted mathematically. The laws of genetics explain why
animals and plants vary within limits of Genesis 1:24.
Mendel’s laws of heredity were not understood by Darwin, but he observed during his voyage
around the world on the ship Beagle, that animals and plants vary from environment to environment, from
island to island. The species of birds and flowers appeared slightly different due to being isolated and
interbreeding within a given locality. Darwin noticed that nature selected the fittest individuals for a given
environment. This is now referred to as the law of Natural Selection. Otherwise known as the law of
Survival of the Fittest. Dogs, cats and other useful animals vary because man has selected them. In the case
of Natural selection nature selects the fittest to survive.
B. How to interpret the law of Natural Selection

1. Is variation Evolution? The evolutionary theory holds that life began spontaneously and through billions
of years complex animals descended from the simple forms. Bible students cannot accept the contention
that variation through Natural Selection is Evolution. However this contention is the backbone of the theory
of Evolution. The theory of Evolution is out of harmony with the Holy Scriptures.
2. The Holy Bible is the only account which describes clearly the origin of plants and animals. (Genesis l.)
Animals and plants were created according to Genesis to occupy and populate the environments of the
earth. in doing this they would vary or change within the limits of the laws of heredity or shall we say
within the laws of Genesis 1 “after their kinds”.
3. Creatures vary because the Creator in exercising His creative power modifies protoplasm to suit the
needs of his creatures. For example a turtle needs a shell so the Creator modified protoplasm to fulfill the
need. Birds needed scales on their legs and feathers on their bodies so the Creator modified protoplasm in
order to supply this need.
This modification of protoplasm to secrete feathers, fur, scales and any other peculiarity needed in
nature is the answer to the origin of groups of animals and plants and not Evolution through billions of
years.
The infinite varieties of creatures in nature is an expression of and a tribute to the wisdom of the
Creator.
4. THESE STATEMENTS HAVE BEEN CLARIFIED THROUGH THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

A. Life did not begin spontaneously but was conferred upon creatures by the Creator in the beginning and
continues to give life to the present day.
B. Changes in Nature do not occur from simple to complex. But according to the Laws put into operation
by the Creator the laws of genetics. Genesis 1:24.
C. The Bible clearly teaches that creation took a literal week to accomplish not billions of years. The
seventh day was dedicated to rest and communion with the Creator. Genesis 1; 2:1-3.
D. All animals known from the fossil record and from the living species are classified by the same system.
Indicating that the major groups of animals have not changed.
E. Scientists have not been able to interpret nature accurately. The Holy Scriptures is the only interpreter of
creation to give the entire Truth.
F. Species are not Genesis Kinds for species do change; Genesis Kinds do not change.
G. The changes undergone by the earth did not occur over periods of billions of years. The catastrophe
indicated by fossils and by geological formations happened as described in Genesis 7. This chapter
describes the Flood which destroyed the earth.
H. Man was created in God’s own image. He did not evolve from a stalk of simple animals over periods of
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millions of years. Genesis 1:27.

I. The huge fossils of animals such as the dinosaurs represents creatures that existed before the Flood.
6. GOD’S LOVE FOR MANKIND

INTRODUCTION
Love and hatred, with the resultant life or death, have been waging a bitter warfare over man’s
soul ever since this world began. By our own actions and decisions we decide which one of the two
opposing forces will dominate us.
1. GOD IS LOVE
A. God is creator, Law Giver, and Redeemer, and Wonder of Wonders, the Eternal Lover. This is
His nature. Love is the ruling principle behind all His actions. Love is the basis of His relationship with us.
God is a loving God, and consists of more than one Person; namely, God, the Father, God the Son, and God
the Holy Spirit. If He were only one single person, He could love only Himself and would have no object of
love. 1 John 4:8. Love is the supreme attribute of God. Jeremiah 31:1
B. When God made peace with mankind and forgave our sins, He chose a way that would express
His infinite love for us without violating His righteous nature. Romans 3:25, 26.
C. He was forced by His righteous law to expel the rebellious pair from Eden, and cut them off
from partaking of the tree of -life. However, He followed man into exile, made possible the way back to
God, bore the burden of man’s sins, and suffered with him from generation to generation as mankind
struggled under the consequences of sin. Isaiah 63:9.
D. Because of His great love for man He purposed to become man and live on earth with us. John
3:16. Love prompted the Son of God to become poor, to be cursed, in order that we might become rich and
blessed. He became like we are in order that we might become as He is. 2 Corinthians 8:9; Galatians 3:13.
2. WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE BEHIND GOD’S REDEMPTIVE ACT?

A. When men become sinful and became the slaves of Satan, God had three choices:
1. To condemn man to death in accordance with God’s low. If he had chosen this alternative,
Satan would have triumphed.
2. To change his moral low and so suspend the sentence of death. (“Where there is no low, there is
no sin”) If He had chosen this solution, the entire universe would have been plunged into anarchy.
3. To allow His Son to pay the penalty for our sin. Only a divine love and wisdom could have
found this alternative; namely, one that would respect His law, and still save mankind.
B. Christ Himself paid for the consequences of our Sin.
1. Satan pictured God before all creation as being a tyrant, severe ruler, and cold hearted judge. He
maintained that God was righteous, but unloving.
2. Satan robbed God of His children by tempting them to rebel, but God did not give up. He
promised that He would pay the consequences of sin Himself. Christ hanging on a cross to pay a penalty
that everyone of us rightfully deserves has a drawing power that is not excelled by anything in this world. If
our eyes fill with tears when we read of the hero who lays down his life for his comrades, what should our
reaction be when we behold what God has done for us on Calvary?
C. God Reconciled us to Himself.

Sinful man did not seek after God, but instead God come after us, seeking to save that which was
lost. Man did not attempt to, reconcile an angry God, but God, like a father, took the initiative and
reconciled us with Himself. 2 Corinthians 5:19.
D. From Nazareth to the Mount of Olives, Jesus Christ demonstrated God’s undying love for the sinner.
The love of God is the central theme of the Bible. Let us see a number of examples to prove this:
1. The highest goal of man is his love for God and his fellowmen. Matthew 22:37-39.
2. Love your enemies. Matthew 5.44, 45 (Remember, we were also enemies and God loved us.)
3. Love as intensely as Christ loved us. John 13:34, 35.
4. It was Christ who taught us to call God “Father”; He is our father waiting for His prodigal son to return.
Luke 15:20, 24.
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5. The Son of God is the good shepherd who went to seek the one lost sheep. Luke 114-6.
E. Love Paid the Ransom Price

1. Only perfect love could devise and carry out the plan of salvation which cost Jesus Christ His own life.
Philippians 16-11. The Son of God who was equal with the Father became like one of us and gave His life
as a ransom for all.
2. The punishment for our sins fell on Him. Isaiah 515, 6.
3. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:13.
4. Through this love we are made again sons of God. 1 John 11; Romans 5:5.
5. We know and believe that God is love. 1 John 4:10, 16.
3. LOVE PROMPTED GOD TO CREATE AND REDEEM MANKIND

A. God’s great love for us prompted Him to send Christ into the world to die for our sins.
Ephesians 2:4. His love for us did not begin after we separated ourselves from Him, but He loved us even
before creation. 1 Peter 1: 18-20.
B. It was love that prompted Him to, create us in the first place; it is love that makes Him give us
all the necessities of life. He built a whole creation around us to ensure our happiness; the beauty of nature
and the animal kingdom testify to the fact that He, did not spare anything to make our lives full and
pleasant.
C. Because He loved us He devised ways and means to show us the way back to heaven. First He
revealed His will or His Commandments to us, and then He promised to give us the strength to obey. He
knew that sinful men have no power to live according to the will of God.
Through faith and surrender to Jesus Christ the power of the Holy Spirit enables us to live a life
that is pleasing to Him. This is the relation between the law of God and the gospel of Salvation. Romans
1:16; Romans 13:10.
D. Jesus Christ allowed man to execute Him like a criminal. He could have called a legion of
angels to deliver Him from that death, but He knew that this was the only way that our sins could be
forgiven. He voluntarily laid down His life for us. This is the greatest testimony to God’s love.
E. The love of God most clearly expressed on Calvary will draw all hearts to Him. John 12:32. On
the cross sacrificial love and cold selfishness met face to face, and love gained the victory. Beholding our
Creator dying on the cross for us awakens love in the hearts of men, and subdues selfishness.
F. We do not worship God because of fear or in the hope of receiving a reward. Only when we
love Him with all our heart and strength (a deep personal affection), will He accept us. God became man in
order to implant this selfless love in our hearts.
G. When we with our spiritual eyes contemplate God’s love, we are changed into the likeness of
Jesus Christ. Love begets love. Contrary to many opinions, even God’s law expresses His love for us. His
law is the transcript of His character. It expresses the principle of Love. Matthew 22:37-39. If we do not
have this principle of love in us, we are unfit for heaven. 1 Corinthians 111-3. Satan is doing everything to
prevent us from discerning and understanding the love of God. He knows that if man can grasp the love of
God, he will repent of his sins and turn to God for forgiveness. Romans 2:4; 2 Corinthians 4:4.
H. How should we respond to this infinite love? The beings in heaven are appalled at the
shallowness of man’s response to the love of God. They are indignant as they see us continue in selfishness
and coldness of heart in the face of such an outpouring of mercy and love.
What is your personal reaction to the love of God?
4. WE SERVE GOD BECAUSE WE LOVE HIM

A. Many misunderstand God’s love and kindness and confuse it with sentimentality. They forget
that His is a genuine love backed up by justice and righteousness. God loves the sinner, but hates
selfishness. He is not only the lover of mankind, but also our judge.
1. Remember, no unrepentant sinner will enter heaven, As certain as there is love, forgiveness, grace and
mercy for a repenting sinner, so certain there is also judgment, condemnation and clestrucflon for those
who despise His grace and reject His love.
2. Some of us think that the greatest sin we could commit is the transgression of one of His Commandments
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(stealing, murder, etc.) This is not so. The unforgivable sin is the rejection of God’s Holy Spirit as He
endeavors to woo us to Him. We cannot commit a worse sin than to decline the offer of forgiveness as
expressed in Christ’s death upon the cross. God is willing to forgive any sin, but His righteous indignation
is poured out when we reject the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, and the continual pleadings of the Holy
Spirit.
B. God never compels us in this life to return His love and to do His will. He does not strike us dead
because we reject Christ’s sacrifice. We are allowed to live our lives, if we so desire, in complete
independence of God. There is no coercion. He accepts our answer of “Leave me alone; do not interfere in
my life.”
C. He desires voluntary love and affection. He only accepts worship when it comes from the heart. When
we give Him our hearts and surrender ourselves wholly to Him, He accepts us with a feeling of joy and
gratitude.
D. If you do not know the love of God, come and contemplate Him. Ephesians 3:18,19. No one can
separate us from the love of God. Romans 8:36,39.
7. GOD’S PLAN FOR MANKIND

INTRODUCTION
Thinking men have, always asked themselves such questions as these: What is the origin of man? What is
the destiny of man? What is the purpose of life? What lies behind the vastness of the universe? Will we
ever know the mystery of death? Does God exist? If so, where is He? Why is mankind plagued with
suffering, wickedness, and war?
Human wisdom is incapable of penetrating these mysteries. God alone has the answers and has
revealed them to us in the Bible.
1. CHRIST WAS INCARNATED TO SAVE MANKIND

A. Man was Created a Free Moral Agent.
Before life existed on this planet a rebellion took place in heaven. Lucifer, the leader of the host of
angels, together with one third of the angels opposed God. They separated themselves from God and
became His enemies. Revelation 12.4. Isaiah 14:12.
God created Adam and Eve on this earth. God said: “Let us make man in our own image.” Genesis
1:26. This earth and man were created perfect. Genesis 1:31. Man is a moral being and not a living
automaton. He has a free will to choose God or to reject Him. God desired human beings who would
choose to serve of their own free will and not through compulsion. In order to make it possible for man to
demonstrate to God his allegiance to Him, God forbade Adorn and Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. Satan hoped that man would take advantage of his free will and choose to serve him rather
than God. Satan’s hopes were fulfilled through deceit when he succeeded in winning man’s allegiance. As a
result of man’s wrong choice, he became subject to sin and death. Genesis 11, 4, 5.
B. God is not only Just but Merciful.

If justice were the only attribute of God’s character, man would have been lost eternally; however,
God is infinitely merciful and loving. In His wisdom He had foreseen such a possibility and had already
taken measures to win man back to Himself. God’s provision to save man from this tragedy was the
incarnation of Jesus Christ. The plan of redemption went into effect immediately. 1 Peter 1:18-20. It is the
only way offered to mankind whereby we can be saved. Through the cross of Christ another opportunity is
given. God wishes that everyone will choose the Lord and His way of life. We are to demonstrate our
choice not only in word but also in deed.
Our choice means either everlasting life or everlasting death. There have always been two classes
of people in the world; namely, spiritual descendants of Abel and those of Cain, lovers of God and
opponents of God.
2. THREE IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE PLAN OF REDEMPTION
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A. In Eden.
Jesus Christ’s atoning death for mankind is promised to Adorn in Eden right after his fall. Genesis 3:15. It
means that the Son of God himself will visit this earth and become man in order to overcome the power of
Satan.
B. Before the Cross.

Two days before His death, Christ foretold that on the cross He would conquer Satan. John 12:31, 32. By
His death, He won the right to destroy Satan at the consummation of His plan of redemption for mankind.
C. In the New Earth.

God will create a new earth for those who choose Him. Revelation 21:1, 5. The old earth and unregenerate
humanity will vanish forever, and the era of sin and death, like a bad dream, shall pass away.
3. EVERY MAN WILL EITHER BE SAVED OR LOST

From Eden to Eden there are only two classes of people, and every man must decide for himself to
which class he will belong. The plan of God will he carried out in spite of human and demonic opposition.
The great controversy between truth and falsehood will soon be over. The image of God will be fully
restored in His redeemed people. Sin arid sinners will be abolished forever. Romans 8:19-22. Would you
like to live on the new earth?
A mere desire is not sufficient. You must act upon it, and accept the plan of God for you.
4. HOLY SPIRIT GUIDES US IN UNDERSTANDING THE PROPHECIES

A. Books of Daniel and Revelation to be studied together. The two most important prophetic books of the
Scriptures are the books of Daniel and Revelation. There exists an intimate relationship between these two
books. The book of Revelation is on explanation and enlargement on the book of Daniel. Both use similar
language, and symbols, and present the same prophetic method of timing.
B. One of the dangers is that, while we study the Bible without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we put in
the future those events that had their fulfillment in the past. We ore encouraged to study these important
prophecies concerning times and events and compare them with past history and present happenings; thus
we may avoid becoming indifferent or being. misled by a false sense of security.
C. Most Bible prophecies have already been fulfilled. Those remaining are fast fulfilling in rapid
succession. The signs given for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ are nearly all recognizable on the
national and international stage. The time left is shorter than we think. Matthew 24:44. By the beacon light
of divine prophecy, we con already see the evidences of the climax of world history which will bring about
the return of Jesus Christ. We have no time to lose.
1. “The lord’s day is near and hastens.” Zephaniah 1:14, 18.

2. “Seek the lord before the lord’s anger.” Zephaniah 2:2, 3.
3. “The vision will surely come, it will not tarry.” Habakkuk 2:2, 3.
4. The world does not realize any danger. “Nor did they realize any danger.” Matthew 24:39.
5. “When you see all these things, know He is at the door.” Matthew 24:33.
D. Our great privilege is to know God and His plans for us. This knowledge requires that we join forces
with Him, that we cooperate with Him that we become part of His work on earth, and eventually share in
His glorious victory. Revelation 1:3; 1 Corinthians 9:22, 23.
8. SATAN’S PLAN FOR MANKIND

INTRODUCTION
Satan means opposer. Other names for Satan are -dragon, old Serpent, devil, Apollyon, and Belial.
Revelation 11:9. Satan’s characteristics are described in John 8:44 (father of lies); in 2 Corinthians 4:4 (the
god of this world); in Revelation 12:9 (the deceiver of the whole world); in Revelation 12:10 (the accuser
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of the brethren).
1. SATAN CAUSES MISERY AND DEATH

A. He is the usurper of this world who robbed man of everything he owned, such as life, divine image,
divine character, edenic home, and dominion, Satan is “god of this world.” Luke 4:6, 7
B. Satan is the chief tyrant of the world. Through the mysterious power of sin, he made every man his
slave. The sting of death is sin. 1 Corinthians 15:56; through lust he leads to sin and death. James 1:14,15.
Every grave is a prison and Satan is the jailer. If he had his way this prison would never be opened, and
there would be no escape for us.
2. SATAN’S PLANS
A. To incite every generation into rebellion against God. To represent God as a great tyrant. To make God
responsible for every sin and its consequences.
B. To present himself as the only benefactor of humanity.
C. To reeducate humanity in such a way that man would delight in sin and Vileness, and would consider
mean, ugly, and perverse that which is actually good, beautiful and perfect.
D. To alienate humanity from God, the only fountain of truth and life. To make man helpless so that he can
pull us into the abyss of everlasting destruction at the end of the world.
E. To eliminate from the soul of man every resemblance of the character of God.
F. To influence and control the minds of men and turn them into his likeness.
G. To dominate the world as its undisputed monarch.
3. SATAN’S DECEPTIONS
A. He caused man’s fall in Eden. He corrupted and ruined mankind.
B. He was the chief cause for the flood. He was the instigator in the building of the tower of Babel. He
dominated Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. He was the unseen leader of the heathen world. He
ruined Israel. He killed Jesus Christ. He persecuted the Christians; he corrupted them and their religion.
Today he is trying to become dictator of the world and to have undisputed dominion over it.
He is at war with God, His government, and His children. He is attacking His character, His low,
His plans, and His gospel. He is against anything good, pure, and divine. He has a master mind that is
working so cunningly that the keenest human thinkers fail to discern his strategy.
D. His methods are deceit, slander, error, truth falsely interpreted or used in the wrong context, mockery,
ridicule, illusion, doubt, sickness, threat, coercion, fear, persecution, torture, death. He successfully
operates through sensuality, passion, anger, hate, and lust. He also employs pleasure, beauty, attractive
promises, ecstasy, artistic concepts, Wisdom, philosophy, knowledge, status, praise, riches and power to
attain his purposes.
4. SATAN FINALLY LOSES

A. Satan Aware He is a Conquered Foe.
Satan gives the appearance of being the winner in this warfare. His victories astound men who are easily
bluffed by him. In reality he is the loser. (His house of cards collapses as the last card is added.) Satan is
aware of the fact that his time is running out. The mad rush in which this pleasure seeking generation is
living today reflects Satan’s desperate effort to plunge all mankind to eternal doom. Revelation 12:12.
B. Each Person Must Decide for God or for Satan.

1.There are only two ways of life, two outlooks, two dispositions, two results, two classes of people on
earth; namely those who follow the ways of Abel and those who follow the ways of Coin. Revelation 13:8
(A majority and a minority.)
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2. Everyone of us must decide for himself which of the two lords he will obey, and to which he will pledge
his allegiance and service. Whom will you love?
3. Declare yourself. To which camp do you choose to belong? Make sure] Test yourself in order to
determine where you stand. Put on God’s whole armor that you may be able to stand. Ephesians 6:11,12.
Prayer:
Open my spiritual eyes, 0 Lord, that I may see your glory and power, that I may understand your plans for
mankind and not be ensnared by the deceitfulness of Satan. Please deliver me from his dominion through
your grace. I pray in the powerful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
9. HOW GREAT IS YOUR GOD?

1. THE POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD
A. When we look at the evening sky we behold a creation that reflects beauty, order, and
intelligence. In the face of these observations, it is reasonable to state that they have all been brought into
being by a Person who has these attributes. The fact is that God is the Planner, Creator, and Upholder of the
cosmos. He is the Mind behind it all. If we consider the intricacy of one hundred million island universes
operating harmoniously in space, we must come to the conclusion that the Person behind it must surpass
them in power and greatness. He must be infinitely greater than all of creation put together. We are indeed
incapable of fully comprehending Him. Job 37:23.
When man rebelled against the authority of God and allowed sin to enter his life, his intellect
became dwarfed. Once God’s friends, men became His enemies. Romans 8:7. The only man who con begin
to comprehend the greatness of God is the one whose mind has been regenerated by God himself. When
man becomes acquainted with God, he is enabled in part to think His thoughts and understand His
revelations. Exodus 36:26.
B. Many of us ponder over the fact that such an all-powerful person as God is the most
controversial figure in the universe. He is both the most hated and the most beloved being. Because of our
rebellion, all of mankind become the enemy of God. We became prejudiced by the accusations of Satan and
soon found ourselves in his camp, opponents of God. He was successful in conditioning our minds to the
fact that God is a tyrant, a severe dictator, an adamant judge who punishes the most insignificant sin with
death.
God is blamed for all our troubles, illness, woes, natural disasters, etc. The image of God in the
mind of man is totally distorted. Many are afraid of Him, many ignore Him, and the majority of the earth’s
inhabitants have made their own gods and idols. These are a mockery of the real God. Only a small
proportion of mankind reveres, worships, and accepts Him as their loving, heavenly Father.
C. We can never find God through philosophy. Job. 11:7. We cannot penetrate the secrets of God
by logic alone. God reveals Himself in nature, in human history, in our fives, in our consciences, but more
clearly in the Holy Scriptures. He has chosen all of these ways to make himself known to us. John 17:1 The
only way to know Him is by faith and by allowing Him to inspire us through His Holy Spirit.
D. God is an infinitely complex being. Consider the fact that He can hear all our prayers, examine
all our lives, understand all our thoughts at the same time. Dealing with millions of human beings at the
same time is as easy to Him as dealing with one person. We can never comprehend such a complex being,
but our limitations do not limit Him. Just as we cannot Put limits to space, time, and eternity, we cannot
limit Him Who created them all. In every respect He is infinite. He is such a wonderful Person that we may
find the greatest delight and privilege in communicating with Him. Psalm 916.
2. THE DIVINE REVELATION OF GOD

The Holy Scriptures contain a most beautiful and accurate picture of our Divine Creator. A person
is a living being with the ability to feel, think, will, and act, who has character and can express himself.
God is such a Person, and He has expressed Himself clearly to mankind. Let us see what the Bible tells us
of this Person.
A. God is a living Person. He is not an abstract idea. Jeremiah 10:10.
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He lives in “the heaven of heavens” 1 Kings 8:27, 39.

His character is spotless. Deuteronomy 31:3, 4.
He is merciful and gracious. Exodus 34:5-7; Micah 7:18.
Gas is love. 1 John 4:16.
B. God has always existed.

He never changes. Hebrews 11:8.
There was never a time when He did not exist. Psalm 90:2; Deuteronomy 32:40.
God is immortal. 1 Timothy 1:17.
C. God is omnipotent.
God can do all things. Job 42:2; Psalm 115:1
All things are possible to God. Matthew 19:26.
He is almighty. Job. 37.23.
D. God is omniscient.
He is marvelous in His knowledge. Psalm 147:5; Psalm 139:7-10,12.
His wisdom is unsearchable. Romans 11:33.
He is able to we the past as well as the future. Isaiah 42:9; Isaiah 46:10.
He rules over history and rulers. Daniel 2:22,21.
E. God is Creator of all things. Psalm 102:25-27.

He is the source of all life, all power, all energy. Psalm 36:9.
God is not a respector of persons and provides for every living thing. Matthew 5:45.
God valued the fellowship of men so highly that He was prepared to pay the ultimate price to win us back
to Himself. John 3:16.
3. REBELLION AND SIN SEPARATE FROM GOD Isaiah 59:11,2.

A. In His great compassion, God longed to restore communication with us. He knew that man can
only live in His presence when he is made whole. His spirit, soul, and body have to be restored and brought
into complete harmony with Him before he can live in His presence. Faith and trust in Him had to be re-
established by the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 11:6; Colossians 1:27.
B. In order to have communion with God, man needs to 1. Know God. 1 John 4:7,8. 2. Love God.
Ephesians 3:17-19; 1 John 4:19. 3. Be united with God. 1 John 4:13; Galatians 2:20.
The true aim of the Christian religion is the reunion and intimate communication with our Creator
by Daily surrender to His will. When this is achieved, man and God become one unit. We are born for this
purpose. How great is your God? How near are you to God? What is your relationship with Him? The
answer to these questions decides your destiny.
10. THE MYSTERY OF THE TRINITY

INTRODUCTION
There are as many concepts of God in this world as there are religions and philosophies.
Investigations to find an understanding of God using mere human methods are futile. God cannot be found
through scientific and philosophical reasoning alone. These can give only a distorted picture of Him. Our
search for Him will be successful only when we approach Him through the revelation of Himself which He
has given to us. We con find God through our spiritual faculties. We con come to Him by faith. When we
yearn for Him we will find Him. Our souls will be united with His and He will become the supreme
experience of our lives.
1. THE NATURE OF THE GODHEAD

A. Recognized in the Old Testament.
1. The fact that God is a triune God is reflected in the Old Testament (sometimes directly and sometimes
indirectly):
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a. At creation-Genesis 1:26; Genesis 1:2.

The distinguishing, mark of God ‘is that He is able to create something out of nothing. Psalms 319.
b. Blessings through Aaron-Numbers 6:24-26.

c. God reveals Himself to Isaiah-Isaiah 6:3; Isaiah 48:16,17
2. In Hebrew language the word EL is singular while ELOHIM is the plural form. The latter alludes to the
trinitarian concept of God. Deuteronomy 6:4.
3. The Godhead consists of three divine Persons who are of one mind and one heart in everything they do.
B. Repeated in the New Testament.

1. At the baptism of Jesus-Matthew 3:15-17.
2. Jesus commissions His disciples-Matthew 28:19.
3. Paul’s blessings-2 Corinthians 13.14.
2. THE THREE PERSONS OF THE GODHEAD

A. God, the Father
1. “No one has ever seen God (Father)” John 1:18.
2. “Our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29.
3. “God is love.” John 4:16.
B. God, the Son

1. “I and the Father are one.” John 10:30.
2. “Let all God’s angels worship Him.” Hebrews 1:6.
3. “Thy throne, 0 God, is forever.” Hebrews 1:8.
4. Jesus Christ has been living since eternity together with the Father. John 1:2. “He was in the
beginning with God.” John 1:14 and the Word became flesh. Christ has equality with the Father.
Philippians 1:6.
C. God, the Holy Spirit

1. “He will give you another Counselor” John 14:16, 17, 26. He is acting as a Regent for Christ on earth
(Vicar of Jesus Christ). The office and authority of the Son of God can be held only by another Person of
the Trinity.
2. “Whom I shall send to you from the Father” John 15:26.
3. “He will convince the world of sin.: John 16:7, 8.
4. “Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.” Romans 8:9.
5. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:14.
6. “The Spirit Himself intercedes for u!” Romans 8:26.
7. God, the Holy Spirit, is the most mysterious Person in the Trinity. His attributes are the same as the ones
of the Father and the Son. To transgress against Him can be a deadly sin.
3. GOD’S REVELATION TO US
A. The Godhead (Trinity) has been existing from eternity-before time, space, matter, energy or
living matter existed. God is the Creator of the animate as well as the inanimate universe (cosmos). He is
infinitely greater than the whole universe. He is immortal, infallible, omniscient, omnipotent and
omnipresent. God’s wisdom is unsearchable and His ways are unfathomable. He can be known only
through His revelation. This fact prompted God to manifest Himself to man.
1. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God.” John 17:1
2. “God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 2:10, 11.
3. Jesus Christ became man, in order to make known the Father to us, John 17:6,8. I have manifested Thy
name to the men, whom Thou gayest me.”
4. As Moses did approaching the burning bush, so let us take off our shoes, as we draw near to God. Let us
go to Him in a spirit of humility and admiration, with a heart full of gratitude, love, and adoration. Let us be
willing to obey His words. For to know our God is the highest goal of every human being.
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5. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?” Psalms 412, 3.
6. “Blessed is the man in whose heart are Thy ways. They go from strength to strength, till they appear
before God in Zion.” Psalms 84:5,7.
11. SIN HAD ITS ORIGIN IN HEAVEN

INTRODUCTION
According to the Bible, there are three heavens: the atmospheric heavens. Revelation 21:1; the
starry heavens. Isaiah 45:18, Psalms 193; the heaven of heavens. 2 Corinthians 11:2-4; 2 Chronicles 6:18.
God’s abode is in the heaven of heavens. 1 Kings 8:27. Many of the heavenly bodies are inhabited
by beings who have never succumbed to the temptations of Satan. Revelation 12:12. During countless eons
of time these beings have lived in perfect harmony With one another and with God. They have been guided
by the law of love. Love is their very nature and they do not consider the low of love a burden but a
privilege and a joy. When God created our solar system all the sons of God rejoiced over it. Job. 38:7. God
created a perfect and magnificent universe. Genesis 1:31.
1. THE FALL OF LUCIFER

A. The original status of Lucifer.
1. The Holy Scripture speaks in symbols about the fall of Lucifer. It refers to him as the king of
Tyrus. Ezekiel 28:12-19. “Thou sealed up the measure or pattern” American Standard Version. “You are
the full measure and pattern of exactness-giving the finishing touch to all that constitutes completeness.”
The Amplified Old Testament.
2. Lucifer once was the prince of angels and Guardian of the Seal of God. He lived in heaven with
God and was a being of such grandeur that when the prophet described his beauty he could only do justice
to it by using the names of countless precious gems. Jesus, the Son of God, created him and appointed him
to be the “anointed and covering Cherub” standing beside the throne of God.
3. Lucifer was faultless, sinless and perfect. He was given free will. He possessed independent
thinking power, as did till other created beings. However, in the course of time, because of his high office
and great influence he become proud, misused his position, and was driven to violence. Because of his
great wisdom and beauty his heart was lifted up against God and he aspired to become equal with God. In
order to better understand this conflict between God and Lucifer, we are given the story of David and
Absolom in 2 Samuel 15:4-6. The gifted and handsome Absolom turned against David, his loving father,
and mode an attempt to take his throne by force. Similarly Lucifer began to slander God and tried to turn
the heads of angels and oil other living creatures of the cosmos against Him. He claimed to be able to
improve God’s work, to be more just than God and give greater freedom to all. Isaiah 14:12-16.
4. His plan to dethrone God failed. The first war ever waged in the universe took place in the very
abode of God between the Son of God and Lucifer, between the angels who followed Christ and those who
took sides with Satan. Revelation 12:7-9.
Lucifer, the Light bearer, became Satan, the opposer. Satan and his forces lost and were forced to
leave heaven. Satan was responsible for perverting one-third of the angels, and they were all banned from
heaven. Their time of probation is ended. Final and irrevocable punishment is awaiting them. Ezekiel
28:17-19. Revelation 20:10. They will be destroyed in the lake of fire described in the Book of Revelation.
B. Satan and his angels now on the earth.

Since the fall, Satan and his followers have been living on the earth. Ephesians 6:12,13. The great
controversy between Christ and Satan which began in heaven has continued on this earth since its creation.
The Son of God had to become man in order to successfully overcome His foe. By His life and death Christ
vindicated the name of God and proved His justice, righteousness and love.
When Satan, through the instrumentality of man, killed in the most shameful ‘Way the Son of
God, he stood accused before all the beings of the universe as the murderer of God’s Son. When Christ
comes in glory to end human history, He Will utterly destroy Satan and his angels. In the light of this great
controversy we can better understand many events described in the Scriptures.
2. THE NATURE OF SATAN AND HIS WORK

A. Satan is called the god of this world. 21Corinthians 4:4; John 14:30.
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B. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air. Ephesians 12.
C. Satan is described as a merciless tyrant who will not easily give up his prey. Isaiah 49:24, 25.
D. His tools are: deception, lying wonders, falsehoods, murders, temptations, false philosophies, etc. John
8:44; 2 Thessalonians 19,10.
E. He is the ceaseless tempter, seducer and accuser of his victims. He accuses God before man. Genesis
11,5. He also accuses man before God. Job. 1:8-11. And he accuses the believers before God. Revelation
12:10.
F. He is the originator of suffering, sickness, and misery. Job. 2:7,8. Luke 13:16; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.
G. He has been the persecutor of God’s children throughout all ages. Revelation 12:13,15,17.
3. THE GREAT SHOWDOWN BETWEEN CHRIST AND SATAN

A. If Satan is the cause of so much misery in this world, why did not God annihilate him a long
time ago? The answer is: Satan accused God of being a tyranical sovereign who mercilessly destroys His
subjects when they disobey or rebel against Him. He accused God of neither loving nor serving His
creatures. Satan’s accusations brought about a crisis in the universe. This is exactly what Satan was aiming
for.
B. If God had destroyed Satan and the angels that followed Him, then everyone in the universe
would have had reason to fear God and to doubt His love. By allowing Satan and his followers to live on
this earth and by permitting them to have a theater of operation, He successfully unmasked the liar and
deceiver, and exposed him to the universe.
By entering the theater of operations Himself, the Son of God demonstrated by His life and death
that God loved mankind to the point of being willing to die for them. Colossians 1:20. God allotted Satan
an extended period of time to demonstrate his ability to build up a happy world based on his own
principles. Satan’s experiment has proved to be a complete Failure. The misery and woe, the world wars
and the sufferings that have been brought into this world through him testify to this fact. The results of
Satan’s rule on earth are suffering, sickness, war, and death.
4. SATAN’S AIMS
A. He endeavors to separate mankind forever from God. He makes every attempt to rule the minds
of men. His aim is to turn them into his own likeness. His dream is to control all nations and to rule this
earth as a, god and sole monarch. This diabolic plan may appear to succeed since we are told that the
majority of mankind will follow him when he shall make a personal appearance on the world stage.
Revelation 13:8; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. Satan is already in control of the minds of many leading
intellectuals who are spreading godless philosophies.
Others play into his hands by embracing a materialistic way of life. Many have replaced God with
science, and “spiritualism” is rapidly capturing the imagination of men throughout the world. Satan has a
way of debasing the masses through immoral literature, movies, television, and radio programs. These are
used successfully by him to brainwash vast multitudes.
B. Satan is preparing our generation for its last great rebellion against God. We will soon be
exposed to his greatest deception his personal appearance on earth under the guise of a Savior of the world.
He will be arrayed in full glory and will bless all who follow him. He will condemn God’s true people and
persecute those who will not accept him and who will base their belief on the Holy Scriptures. The Bible
prophesies that a fascinated world will fall at his feet and worship him as god. Revelation 13:8.
5. IS IT POSSIBLE TO WITHSTAND SATAN’S POWER?

If we rely only on our human strength, the answer is “no.” On the other hand, if we call on God for
power, the answer is “yes.” Ephesians 6:11,12, James 4:7. The Bible says that Satan flees from the person
whose, soul is totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. If the Holy Spirit lives in you, Satan cannot touch you.
Therefore, be among those who have conquered him through Christ. Revelation 12:11.
12. WHAT IS SIN?

INTRODUCTION
Sin is cancer of the soul. Its cause is unseen and mysterious. The effect of sin is lethal even in the
smallest quantity. It kills spirit, soul, and body. Originally man was made perfect. He was sinless and
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innocent. He chose of his own free will to transgress the law of God.
1. THE NATURE OF SIN.

A. What is Sin? It is rebellion against God, separation from Him, and joining with Satan. It is
transgression of the low. 1 John 3:4. And the law is the expression of God’s character. Where there is no
low, there is no sin. Romans 5:12,13. Sinful deeds are The fruits of a Carnal life. 1 Corinthians 6:9,10. Our
sinful nature is the root of a Carnal life. Mark 7.20-23.
B. Effect of sin. As a drop of poison can spoil a whole barrel Of water, so one small sin can affect
the whole human family or system. As the poison of a snake quickly spreads through a body and brings
about death, so sin spreads throughout the whole human race and brings about spiritual and physical death.
Sinful nature cannot be tamed or ennobled. Adam’s sin consisted in listening to the voice of Eve (1
Timothy 2:14), and in stealing the forbidden fruit. This apparently small transgression developed into
murder in the second generation. (Cain). Jeremiah 13:23.
C. The Power of Sin.

1. Sin never allows its prey to escape. We do not have the necessary strength to set ourselves free
from the power of sin. From the day we are born we are its captives. Romans 3:10-12, 23; Romans
7:14,15,18-21,24; Romans 8:6-8.
2. As we continue to practice sin, we form a habit. We begin losing our sensitiveness to sin,
consider it harmless, desirable, and finally we cannot live without it. The parallel to this condition is the
addict who cannot live without his narcotics. Civilized society abhors crude, open sinfulness, but tolerates
and accepts the more subtle practices, the more so-called refined sins which man has perfected to an artistic
level. The Bible says that mankind is living in darkness, in the shadow of death. Matthew 4:16.
2. THE FALL OF MAN AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

Man is not an Automaton. He was created with a free will. When He created man, God gave him
an intellect, the faculty of speech, the ability to choose and a high moral understanding. God created man in
His own image, physically, and spiritually, fitted to live in His presence. God rather took the risk of having
to deal with a human rebellion (sin) than to create men who did not have a free will. God yearned to be
loved by beings who worshipped Him spontaneously and not because they had no other choice.
3. SIN’S CONSEQUENCES AND PUNISHMENT

A. There is no difference in result between small and big sins, since the small sins Will soon
become big sins. “The sting of death is sin.” 1 Corinthians 15:56. “Lust brings forth sin and sin brings forth
death.” James 1:14,15. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23a. This refers to the second death, which is
annihilation. Revelation 20:14, 15.
B. The Consequences of Sin are: loss of communion with God, loss of the noble powers streaming
from Him into our minds and hearts; loss of confidence and happiness; sickness and suffering; hate and
war; and physical death.
C. The Punishment of Sin. Unrepentant sinners are punished after the second resurrection.
(Resurrection of the lost) The record of their judgment will be disclosed during the millennium. The verdict
or penalty is the second death which is complete and everlasting destruction.
4. OUR CHOICE OF ETERNAL LIFE OR ETERNAL DEATH

A. The Bible describes the moral condition of mankind as resembling a man whose body is
covered with wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores. Isaiah 1:5, 6.
B. God, through Jesus Christ, is willing to forgive repentant sinners all their sinful deeds, but He
does not allow us to keep our sinful nature. He demands that we let it die. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit
the Kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 15:50. We must choose between the disease and the cure.
C. The old man must die and the new man must be spiritually created. Ephesians 4:22-24.
D. For this reason the Son of God had to become man. Hebrews 2:14,15.
E. The root of all misery and woe suffered by mankind lies in the sins harbored in the minds of
human beings. Only God can solve this dilemma and make man sinless. Christ took upon Himself the
responsibility of solving this problem. He did it in a superb way through His masterful plan of salvation.
This plan reveals the loving kindness and mercy of God. His love for us is so great that He was willing to
endure death in order to save us. To accept His sacrifice means life and to reject it means eternal death.
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Remember, anything that separates you from God is SIN.
13. LAW AND GRACE

INTRODUCTION
Without low there is no sin. Sin has been in the world since the fall of man. Romans 5:13; Romans
4:15. If we say that the moral law of God is not valid any longer in the New Testament era, then we are
saying that there is no sin. in the world today. In that case, why is grace needed? Romans 6:1,2. The person
who rejects the Old Testament teaching simultaneously rejects the New Testament, since the latter grows
out of the roots of the Old Testament. In both texts we find the same God, the some Messiah. The same
gospel of salvation, the some principles and standards of life.
1. RELATION BETWEEN LAW AND GOSPEL

The low of God is the gospel in code form. The law of God is the root of the gospel. The gospel is
the fruit of the law. The law is a transcription of God’s character, the description of His will. We find the
low of God written on the first pages of the Bible. (Record of creation). “You shall not eat.” Genesis 2:17.
In the same account we find also the evidence of the grace of God. Genesis 3:15; Genesis 6:8. Both law and
grace have always existed. Romans 5:13,20.
2. THE LAW OF LOVE

A. God is love. 1 John 4:16. love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:10.
B. The law of the universe is love. What is love? Total surrender, expressed in obedience. John 14:21; 1
John 2:3-6.
C. In the Garden of Eden man knew two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40. This is the low of love broken
down into two commandments.
D. After the fall of man these two lows of love were expanded and broken down into ten commandments:
four of them deal with love toward God, while the other six deal with love toward man. After Adorn and
Eve sinned, these laws were written into the conscience and memory of man. Later, at Sinai, God wrote
these commandments on two tables of stone. Exodus 20:1-17.
3. JESUS IS BOTH LAWGIVER AND REDEEMER

A. According to Scripture, JESUS Christ is the Creator and Upholder of the cosmos. Hebrews 1:1-
3. Jesus is both the lawgiver and the Redeemer. James 4:12; Isaiah 33:22. Jesus gave Moses the Ten
Commandments on Mt. Sinai, and explained these commandments further when speaking to the multitudes
on the Mount of Blessings.
In the Beatitudes He interprets the for reaching effects of the principles of the law at God.
Matthew 5:17,18. God is unchangeable and so is His law. James 1:17; Psalms 119:18,89. We are forbidden
to make any change in the Word of God or His law. Revelation 22:18,19.
B. When man sinned God had three alternatives:
1. He could have made void His law.
2. He could have forced man to pay the consequences of the violation of His law.
3. He could offer to pay for the consequences Himself.
C. The fact that He chose the third alternative demonstrates not only His great love for us and His
righteousness, but also the unchangeableness of the Low of God. God could not legally grant mercy to a
sinner before he had satisfied the demands of His own law. Either He or the sinner had to pay the death
penalty required by His law.
D. The Cross reconciles God and the sinner. Before this earth was created, in the council of the
Godhead, Jesus Christ agreed to become incarnate, to be born in the likeness of man. He agreed that He
would pay the death penalty for man if he were ever to fall into sin. On the cross the righteousness and the
mercy of God met together and became reconciled. The requirement of the low was fully satisfied.
4. THE LAW OF GOD GUIDES US TO CHRIST

A. The law reflects the pure character of God. Through the law we recognize the fact of sin. The
law convicts us of sinfulness and shows us that we have a need of a Savior. The law guides us to Christ.
Galatians 3:24. The law is our schoolmaster who brings us to Christ that we might be forgiven and justified
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through faith in Him and through the total surrender of our being to the Holy Spirit.
B. The law of God is a mirror which shows us the stains made in our character by sin. The law is
not able to cleanse us from our sin. Only Christ can do the cleansing. It is His blood that removes the stains
of sin.
C. Some theologians maintain that the law of God has been made void by the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ. This can easily be misunderstood. The only way we can claim that the condemnation of the law
does not apply to us any longer is by asserting that through Christ (power of the Holy Spirit) we are able to
keep the whole law of God. Romans 6:14,15.
D. No one is able to keep the moral law of God by his own strength. Romans 8:6-8. However,
when we surrender our lives to Christ, He is more than able to keep in us His own laws and principles.
Romans 8:1-4. It is therefore not a matter of keeping the law, but a matter of surrendering ourselves to Him.
When we follow Jesus we no longer are governed by compulsion to keep His laws, but by a deep desire to
obey Him, to please Him in all things. We are willing to do much more than what the law requires. 1 John
5:1
E. We must be careful to avoid the thought that we keep the law of God in order to earn salvation.
This is impossible and is an abomination to God. Salvation cannot be earned; it is a gift of God. It is based
on His grace and we accept it by faith. Romans 3:28. It is because we obtained such a great salvation,
because we love Him and have received His very life and power, that we gladly obey all His precepts and
commandments. Romans 3:31. By faith we uphold the law. The Holy Spirit actually writes into the mind of
a converted person (born anew) the law of God. Hebrews 8:10.
5. THE LAW AS A FINAL TEST

A. According to prophecy there will come a time when governments and churches will unite. They
will show a disregard for the law of God. They will change it and enforce their own concept of God’s law.
When this happens, mankind reaches the limit of the patience and forbearance of God. Psalm 2:1-3; Psalm
119:126; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.
B. Nevertheless, even during this crisis there will be faithful men in this world who will love God
and obey His law. Revelation 14:12; Revelation 22:14.
C. The law and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not contradictory not enemies, but are helpmates.
Both serve a purpose in saving the sinner from his sins. One points out sin; the other provides an antidote or
remedy of sin.
D. Do not disregard the law of God. Remember, nothing in this universe operates outside His law.
The gospel of Jesus Christ gives you freedom from this law only in that it gives you full power to observe
it. Therefore, it is no burden. It has become a delight. Proverbs 23:26.
14. JESUS CHRIST THE GOD-MAN

INTRODUCTION
Jesus Christ is the most prominent personality of world history, the hero of Holy Scriptures, the
man who changed the image of the world. He not only deeply affects our lives, but also the civilization and
the history of mankind. We con find a variety of opinions regarding Jesus Christ, but honest inquirers
should regard the Holy Scriptures as the only reliable source of information regarding His person and work.
Christ is very much interested in our opinion of Him since this determines our relationship with Him.
Matthew 22:42.
1. THE LIFE AND NATURE OF JESUS CHRIST

A. He is God. John 1:11,14; Hebrews 1:6,8. He is equal with the Father. Philippians 1:6. He has
life in Himself. John 5.26.
B. He is the Son of God. John 3.16; Matthew 3:17.
C. He has Existed from Eternity, before time, before creation of the cosmos. John 17:5; Micah 5:2.
D. By commission of the Father, He is Creator of the whole universe. Genesis 1:26. “Let us make
man in our image.” “The Word was God.” John 1:1-3,10. “All things were created by Him.” (upholds all
things) Colossians 1:15-17. “By whom also He mode the worlds.” Hebrews 1:1-3.
E. He became Man. He became the Son of Man that He might die for us. Isaiah 7:14; Matthew
1:23. He became fully man to save fallen mankind. Hebrews 2:14. He is the second Adorn. 1 Corinthians
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15:45-47.
F. He was without Sin. By this He proved that all sinful men (morally fallen) can avail themselves
of the power of God to keep the laws and principles of God, thus overcoming sin. 1 have kept my Father’s
commandments” John 15:10. “Satan has nothing in me.” John 14:30. “He was tempted yet without sin.”
Hebrews 5:15.
G. He died as the Son of Man for our sins. “When we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:7,8. “This is my blood that is shed for the remission of sins.” Matthew 26:28.
H. He arose from the dead as victor over Satan and death. “Him God raised up the third day.” Acts
10:40, 41. I have the keys of hell and of death.” Revelation 1:18.
I. He ascended into heaven to serve as our only High Priest, Mediator, Advocate, and finally,
Judge of all mankind. “There is one mediator between God and men.” 1 Timothy 23. “We have such an
high priest.” Hebrews 8:1,2. “He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.”
Hebrews 7:25,26. “For the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, because
he is the Son of man. “John 5:22,27.
J. At the end of the ages He will come again. He comes in glory as King of kings, to judge the
living and the dead and to save the redeemed of all ages. I will come again.” John 14:11-3. “You shall see
the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven.” Matthew 26:64.
2. CHRIST IS KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS

“And this is life eternal that they might know Thee.” John 17:1 If you say you do know Him, what
is your relationship to Him? When He shall return to earth, will He be your King or your Judge? “They
shall never perish.” John 10:27,28. “He that hath the Son hath life.” 1 John 5:12.
What is your concept of Christ? Have you learned to love the living Christ, the Lord of Glory?
You cannot love and worship Him fully if you lack an intimate knowledge of Him.
What is your relationship to Christ?
15. THE WAY OF DELIVERANCE FROM SIN

INTRODUCTION
As long as man loves himself, and approves of his sinful deeds and way of life, nobody can deliver
him. God is able to help only the one who recognizes the deadly nature of sin and abhors it. Psalm 32:23.
The truly repentant man sincerely inquires what he must do to be saved.
The man who truly desires to live forever in the presence of God must be prepared to accept God’s
conditions of salvation. He must be ready to declare war on his sinful nature and fight it with the power (the
Holy Spirit) which God gives to him. He must be willing to overcome his sinful ego and prevail against all
attacks of Satan, the world, and the flesh.
1. AN UNREGENERATE MAN MUST BE SAVED FROM TWO THINGS:

A. From punishment. Romans 6:23a (second death)
B. From the controlling power of sin-the rebellious, selfish heart. Romans 8:7, 8,
2. MAN CAN NEVER SAVE HIMSELF Romans 7:24.

A. We cannot save ourselves by keeping the law of God. Galatians 2:16. The heathen religions are
based on self -redemption. The idea is that man, by doing something good or by suffering, can merit God’s
favor, His forgiveness and salvation.
B. The Word of God, however, teaches us clearly that salvation is not a matter of approval by a
church, or by holding to a creed, or by leading a godly life. None of these can save us from the power of
sin.
C. How then are we saved? Through Jesus Christ alone. Romans 7:24,25. Acts 4:12.
3. THE SON OF GOD WROUGHT A COMPLETE REDEMPTION ON THE CROSS

A. However, it must be pointed out here that redemption belongs to those only who accept it by
faith. It is not automatically applied to every human being.
B. Jesus Christ offers to us individually deliverance from the punishment of sin. God gave His
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only son forever to lost mankind. John 3:16.

C. Because God cannot die, He became man that He might die the second death for the repentant
sinner who sincerely believes, loves, and obeys Him. 1 Corinthians 15:1
D. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sins of the past provided we confess them with a
contrite heart. 1 John 1:7. In the place of our sinful life He imputes to us His own pure sinless life, and
gives us His righteousness provided we accept it by faith. Romans 3:25.
E. Jesus Christ offers us deliverance from the power of sin.
1. Repentance for our sins as well as forgiveness of them are both the gifts of God, to be accepted
by faith. Acts 5:31.
2. The new birth is a gift of God also. John 15; John 1:13.
3. The Spirit of God dwells in the newly created man. John 14:17.
4. The Spirit of God writes God’s laws in the mind of man (the seat of intellect and emotion) and
gives him the power to live up to them. Hebrews 8:10; Romans 8:3, 4.
5. Christ is the only High Priest of humanity and only Mediator and Advocate of the redeemed.
Hebrews 7:25.
6. The Holy Spirit educates and molds the character of all who obey Him. He is to be the guide of
their lives. John 16:13.
7. The angels of God are sent to help the redeemed in their struggle for endurance and victory.
Hebrews 1:13,14.
8. The redeemed have free and direct access to God’s throne of grace. Hebrews 4:16.
4. CHRIST’S DEATH ON THE CROSS WAS A PERFECT SACRIFICE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD

The Son of God, through His life and death, finished the work of redemption of mankind. We
cannot add anything to it or take away from it. Nevertheless, one thing has to be understood. We must
cooperate with God or His sacrifice and victory will have no effect on us. Complacency, indifference,
unbelief counteract the infinite grace of God, and make void the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our lives.
5. STEPS TO RECEIVE DELIVERANCE FROM THE PUNISHMENT OF SIN:

A. We must approach Jesus Christ as we are. Isaiah 1:18; Matthew 11:28.
B. We must believe in the lord Jesus. Acts 16:31.
C. We must confess-and forsake our sins. 1 John 1:9.
6. STEPS TO RECEIVE DELIVERANCE FROM THE POWER OF SIN:

A. We must ask God for a pure heart and a clean conscience. Psalm 51:10,11.
B. We must be willing to keep the law of God. Romans 6:15,16.
C. We must at all times maintain communication with God through prayer. Luke 18:1; Daniel 6:10.
D. We must feed our souls daily with the Word of God. Matthew 4:4.
E. We must keep our thoughts on the things of God and avoid all negative sinful thoughts. Philippians 4:8.
F. We must keep looking continually to Christ and not to men. Hebrews 12:1,2
7. INDIFFERENCE IS MAN’S GREATEST SIN

A. The greatest sin man can commit is not some vicious crime, but indifference -disregard and rejection of
the grace and gifts of God offered to us through Jesus Christ.
1. God can forgive every crime, but He can do nothing for a person who says, I don’t need God.
Please leave me alone.”
2. No man is so blind as the man who refuses to see light.
B. “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” Hebrews 11-3.
16. WHY DID GOD HAVE TO BECOME MAN?

INTRODUCTION
The plan of redemption of mankind and the plan of creation were conceived by God at one and the
same time. 1 Peter 1:20. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father and God the Son had agreed
that the Son one day would become man and visit our planet, and voluntarily die for the sins of the world.
Genesis 3:15.
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1. SATAN, THE TEMPTER AND ACCUSER

A. He accuses God before mankind-in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1,5) and throughout the
ages. (Romans 3:4).
B. He accuses mankind before God. Revelation 12:10.
2. SATAN’S ACCUSATIONS INDICATE WHY MAN NEEDSAN INTERCESSOR

A. Satan began his rebellion in heaven. His aim has always been to accuse God of being a tyrant
and to show that His law is unjust. He pictured God as a merciless ruler who destroys His subjects when
they violate His commandments. Genesis 2:17.
B. At the forbidden tree Satan attempted to demonstrate that man preferred to give allegiance to
him rather than to God. He desired to show that man had no power to keep the moral law of God, and that
we were all lawbreakers just as he was. 2 Thessalonians 2:7, 8,
Man succumbed to his strategy and became a rebel. Satan had won a temporary victory and assumed that
God would now destroy man.
C. Best men of God were accused by Satan.
1. He accused Job before God, saying that he loved and served Him only because of the material benefits
bestowed on him. Job. 1:8-11. He claimed Job would curse God if his life should be imperiled. Job. 2:44
2. When Abraham acted faithlessly Satan accused him of being a liar. Therefore, God demonstrated the
great faith of His friend, Abraham, by testing him on Mt. Hareb. (Sacrifice of Isaac-Genesis 22)
3. Satan exposed Jacob as a fraud. He tried to kill Jacob by sending Esau, his older brother, against him, but
Christ intervened on Jacob’s behalf at the last moment. At the river Jabbok, Jacob repented and surrendered
his life to the lord. His life was spared and Christ changed his name from Jacob to Israel. (From “deceiver”
to “overcomer”) Genesis 32:26-28.
3. WHY DID GOD THE SON HAVE TO BECOME A MAN?

A. The first Adam rebelled against God and His laws. In God’s plan a second Adorn was to justify
His name by a life of complete trust and obedience. This man was to lead a sinless life and withstand all the
temptations of Satan. The life of such a man would both prove His love and justify His law. Romans
3:25,26.
B. No human being, in his fallen state, could have accomplished this; neither would an angel
qualify. God, the Father, foresaw this crisis and agreed that His Son, Jesus Christ, should become the
Second Adam. Jesus was chosen to vindicate the name of Gad, to pay the penalty for our sins, which is the
second death. Romans 6:23a.
C. Thus is was agreed that one day Jesus would become a human being and carry out the great
work of vindicating the name of God and reconciling humanity with God. He was not to use His divine
strength to carry out His mission but to do everything through the power available to ail men; namely, the
Holy Spirit. If He had used His divine power for His own benefit at any time, He would have proven that
no one except God Himself was able to keep the Law of God-much less a man.
D. According to the law man can only be redeemed by another man, by a blood relative. Leviticus
25:48,49; 1 Peter 1:18, 20. In order to qualify as Redeemer (Messiah) he would have to be tempted in every
way as we are and yet be sinless. He was to taste “second death” for us and yet rise from the dead as victor
over death and Satan. Hebrews 2:14, 15, 9.
E. Jesus Christ is not only the Redeemer of mankind, but also its only Mediator and High Priest. 1
Timothy 2:5, 6; Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 2:17, 18. Only a man can serve as High Priest and Mediator before
God. Hebrews 11, 2, 10.
F. On the day of Judgment, God the Father will judge no one since all authority to judge has been
given to His Son. Our Judge can say that He suffered and was tempted as we are, and that He conquered all
sin; no man will be able to say that the Judge was unfamiliar with the temptations and trials of the human
race. John 5:22, 27. Jesus Christ will judge us as the Son of Man.
G. On the Day of Judgment, Jesus Christ will be the Advocate of all those who accepted His blood
for the forgiveness of their sins and who have put on His righteousness. 1 John 2:1, 2.
4. CHRIST IS FULLY MAN AND FULLY GOD

A. Our God is a consuming fire (glory). Hebrews 12:29. Man in his fallen state could not stand
before God and live. God had to change His form, stoop to our level, that we might be able to see and
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understand and believe in Him. Philippians 16, 7; 1 John 1:1-3. This explains His name, Emmanuel, which
means “God with us” He is fully man and fully God. John 5:25, 27. Just as Jesus Christ revealed Himself to
Moses in the lowly form of a burning bush, so that Moses might not be consumed by His radiant power, so
He veiled His glory in the form of a human being. This made it possible for the sinner to approach Christ
and enter into communion with Him without fear.
Through sin Satan had been able to break the communion between God and man. He had hoped
that this separation would last forever. However, Christ bridged this chasm and made it possible for divinity
and humanity to be united again forever. He is the connecting link between the Godhead and mankind. He
revealed to us the Father’s character and His law. John 1:14, 18; John 14:13. 9.
B. He had to become man so that He might teach us humility and obedience by His example.
Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 5:8, 9. This demonstration was only valid if given by a man.
C. He became man to demonstrate that we are given the strength to withstand the temptations of
Satan. He conquered sin in His own flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit. The first Adorn had the same
power available to him but did not use it. Romans 8:3; 1 John 3:8. God destroys the sinful nature in all
those who love and surrender their lives to Him and gives us His own nature.
D. He became man in order to vindicate and magnify the law of God which was broken by man
and Satan. Isaiah 42:21; Matthew 5:17, 18. By observing the commandments of His Father, He refuted the
accusations of Satan who maintained that they are impossible to keep. John 15:10; 1 John 5:1
E. He become man in order to seek all who are lost and desirous of being delivered from sin and
death. Luke 19:10. He provides a way of escape for all who are slaves to Satan, sin, and death. By going
into death Himself, where Satan’s prisoners are kept, He overcame him who holds the keys of death and set
us free. Revelation 1:18. At the end of human history, He will come as the Son of Man, and lead the
redeemed multitudes to the “sea of glass”, before the Father’s throne, and say “Here am I and the children
whom you have given me.” Hebrews 2:13.
F. He became man in order to be the second Adam, the head of a new human family, born from
above. John 17:15, 16; 1 Corinthians 15:45-47.
G. When God the Father gave Jesus Christ to humanity, He gave Him to us forever. John 3:16.
This tie is never to be broken-throughout the eternal ages. He is linked with us and retains His human
nature. He is forever our elder brother. Hebrews 2:11. Through Him we are more closely united with God
than if we had never fallen into sin.
How can we hold back our love from such a God and how can we help showing Him our gratitude
in the face of His indescribable gift, His beloved Son, Jesus Christ? Romans 11:33-36.
17. THE MYSTERY OF THE CROSS

INTRODUCTION
When Christ was executed on a cross as a common criminal, mankind was faced w;th the
profoundest mystery. It was a unique event that will never occur again in the history of the world. It is the
central event of human history. When our Creator was nailed to a crude, wooden cross, all creation gazed
upon this scene in object horror. Many have inquired: Why did the Creator allow men to treat Him in this
manner? The cross is a sign of victory, for on it Christ triumphed over Satan, sin, and death.
1. THE CONSPIRACY AND REBELLION IN HEAVEN

A. In order to fully understand the meaning of the Cross, we must investigate the events that led to
this tremendous event. This will lead us into the subject of the controversy between Jesus Christ and
Lucifer. The latter rebelled against God and His Government and thus became Satan. Isaiah 14:12-14;
Ezekiel 28:12-17.
1. Lucifer accused God of being the exact opposite of what God claimed to be. He pictured Him as an
unjust tyrant, a God who was quick to destroy and slow to forgive. He accused God of being incapable of
loving, forcefully demanding to be served, never giving but always receiving. (Compare with Absalom’s
rebellion against his father David in 2 Samuel chapters 13-18).
2. The purpose of his slanderous accusations was to create a spiritual crisis in the cosmos that would bring
about an alienation between God and His created beings. He had hoped to win the latter’s sympathy and,
together with their help, unseat God. Thus he hoped God would be forced to give him a share in the
Government of the universe.
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B. God on Trial Before His Created Universe.

Jesus Christ is the Creator and Sustainer of the cosmos. John 1:1-3,10. Colossians 1:15-17. Lucifer
was created by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As a created being he was the highest and most powerful
angel in heaven. He was the prince of all the created beings. However, Satan was never given creative or
sustaining power. He did not have immortality! At the time of Lucifer’s rebellion, God could have chosen
to withdraw life from him.
Instead God embarked on a different plan. Satan was given a time and a place to reveal his true
character and to show that his accusations were false. In this dramatic controversy God is the accused and
Satan the accuser. (Romans 14) In the end, everyone would be able to judge for himself who was right and
who was wrong. The center of operations was to be this world. Calvary was chosen as the stage of the final
battle. The human race as a whole, and the Jewish nation in particular, was to be the cast.
2. CHRIST AND THE CROSS

A. When Adam rebelled, God had three choices:
1. To punish the transgressor.
2. To suspend His law and overlook the transgression (which would have led to lawlessness, anarchy).
3. To pay the price of redemption Himself and give man another opportunity.
Because God is love, He chose the last alternative. John 3:16.
B. Since God cannot die, He had to transform Himself first into a human being. Only in this form
could He lay down His life as a ransom for us. Hebrews 2:14, 15. But there is more to the Cross than the
redemption of humanity. Its implications are much deeper. The conflict between Jesus Christ and Satan
which is being resolved on this planet is being watched by all the angels and sinless beings inhabiting the
different planets. Everyone living on the earth, on the other hand, is participating in this controversy since
he must take sides with either truth (Jesus Christ) or error (Satan). 1 Corinthians 4:9.
C. Jesus Christ died hanging between heaven and earth. This is symbolic of the fact that His death
was not only significant for humanity but it involved all the other beings inhabiting the universe. John
12:32 states: “I will draw all men unto me.” (The word “men” is supplied, and its inclusion limits the
application of the verse to members of the human family only. It should be omitted, for not only were
members of the human race drown to Christ by the sacrifice of Himself, but angels, and the inhabitants of
the other worlds were drawn to Him anew by the demonstration of the sacrificial love of God. S.D.A. Bible
Commentary) This means that when Jesus Christ lay down His life for sinful humanity He won the
sympathy, love, and allegiance of all created beings in the entire universe. This is more expressly stated in
Colossians 1:20 where it speaks of a reconciliation made with those 1n earth and in heaven.”
We may rightly ask the question: What did God have to reconcile in heaven? The answer is that on
the Cross Jesus Christ justified God’s character before the whole universe. He showed that God is both just
and merciful, facts which were questioned by Satan. Romans 3:26. Jesus Christ died outside the walls of
Jerusalem, thereby showing that He did not come to redeem only Israel but all mankind. Hebrews 13:11-13.
D. Satan’s Change of Tactics.

1. Indecision is one of Satan’s characteristics. While dealing with Jesus Christ, he played a double game.
He first attempted to divert Him from his path leading to death by tempting Him in the wilderness three
times. Satan meant to entice Jesus Christ to worship him. Luke 4:5-7. Since he did not succeed, he
persecuted Christ until he drove Him to the Cross.
2. The Lord knew the nature of the mission for which his Father had chosen him since he was a child. He
was steadily walking in the shadow of the Cross. Satan’s agents cooperated to bring about this climax. The
loop become tighter and tighter until finally the Pharisees, in cooperation with the Scribes, the Sanhedrin,
and one of Christ’s own disciples arranged for Him to be taken to the place of execution. Blind hate always
stupefies the mind.
3. At this point, Satan realized that the Cross was his own undoing, but it was too late. Luke 23:31. In a
desperate attempt to prevent Christ from laying down His life for the sins of mankind, he tried to persuade
Him to step down from the Cross. Speaking through the High Priest and the people present, he urged Him
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to save Himself. Luke 23:35, 37.
E. From noon until 3 p.m. a deep darkness surrounded Calvary and Jerusalem. It looked indeed as if
everyone had forsaken Him. Both Jews and Gentiles had rejected Him, while His own disciples were in
hiding. Satan’s last temptation was most severe. Christ’s sufferings were not primarily physical pain or
loneliness, but the fact is that our sins, which-He was paying for in our stead, had separated Him from His
Father. The sins If the whole world were weighing upon His heart. 2 Corinthians 5:21.
3. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CROSS

A. When Christ made Himself an offering for sin by becoming our sin bearer, the Father separated
Himself from His Son. When this fellowship was broken, Jesus cried: “Father, why have you forsaken
me?” Matthew 27:46. This mental agony was foretold in Psalms 22:1, 19-21. It was this separation that
broke His heart.
B. What is the Second Death? The second death is symbolized in Scripture by “outer darkness” a
place where there is no light or life. Matthew 22:13. When Christ took upon Himself the sins of humanity
(Garden of Gethsemane) He entered in our stead into this “outer darkness” from which no created being
can return. He experienced this also on the Cross during the dark period. Thus He tasted second death for
all. Hebrews 19.
C. Satan’s temptation of Jesus Christ while He was in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross
was intense, but our lord conquered through faith. Isaiah 53:10, 11. He saw by faith the multitudes of men
and women who would believe in Him and accept His sacrifice as a propitiation for their sins. He saw those
who had been redeemed through His blood from the first generation to the end of history. He became victor
through faith. Luke 23:46. He died as a conqueror. He conquered death. When Jesus died, Satan realized
that his power over men had been broken and that one day he would be destroyed. The death of Jesus
Christ was his own death knell. Revelation 1:18.
D. The victory which Jesus Christ wrought over sin and death was attained in an unique way;
namely, by entering death itself. He conquered death through death. The Cross is the most mysterious
weapon of the universe. The greatest victory ever won was achieved through it. It was a moral victory. In
this light we can better understand what Paul meant in Colossians 2:15.
The last cry of the dying Savior 1t is finished” was a triumphant cry addressed to all the sinless
beings living in the universe. It was also addressed to the Father: I have finished the work for which I have
covenanted myself “ Zechariah 6:13; John 17:4.
4. WHAT WAS ACCOMPLISHED ON THE CROSS?

A. Jesus Christ reconciled man to God by taking the penalty of our sins upon Himself. Romans
5:10. Thus He brought humanity back to His Father’s house. Hebrews 2:13.
B. God the Father showed that He deeply loved the sinner but abhorred his sins. He condemned
sin in the flesh of His Son.
C. Christ obtained the authority to forgive the sins of anyone who comes to Him with a contrite
heart, confessing his sins. Micah 7:18; Mark 2:10.
D. He died for all men. Every man may be saved if he will accept what rightly or legally belongs
to him. No man is condemned to hell. Those who go there do so by their own choice. Christ gave His own
blood to cleanse our polluted souls. 1 John 1:7; 2 Corinthians 5:15.
E. He paid the penalty of our sins, which is the second death. Romans 6:23a.
F. Instead of destroying Adorn after he sinned, He died in his stead. Romans 5:6, 7.
G. He justified God, His government and laws, before the whole universe. John 17:3, 4.
H. He demonstrated that God is humble and willing to serve. Philippians 2.6-8.
I. He proved that God is willing to suffer and endure the most degrading treatment to save those
He loves. Isaiah 53:1-5.
J. He demonstrated His obedience to the point of death. Hebrews 5.8.
K. He showed that He loves His creatures more than Himself. John 111.
L. As a result of Christ’s stupendous demonstration of justice and love, a great multitude of people
have chosen Him through the ages to be their God, their Lord, their King, and their Redeemer. Revelation
5:8, 9.
5. REFLECTIONS OF THE CROSS
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A. The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross was not caused so much by physical pain, but chiefly by
tremendous mental and emotional anguish. The reason for it was that the Savior was at that moment
bearing the sins committed by every human being who ever lived.
B. The one who represented the essence of love (Jesus) and the one who represented the essence
of selfishness (Satan) stood face to face of Calvary. The evil nature of Satan was unmasked before the
entire universe when he killed the Son of God.
C. The infinite value of one human being was revealed on the Cross. God paid with his own life
the penalty of sin for every individual. If you were the only human being on earth, He would have died for
you. In the face of this event we have to discard once and for all the notion that man could appease an
angry God. There is nothing we can do to earn salvation. Salvation comes only by one way, and it is by the
gift of Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for the sins of the whole world. 2 Corinthians 5:18, 19.
D. The Cross also demonstrates what God will do with sinners at the time of judgment: hell
(destruction or second death) awaits every unrepentant sinner.
E. Jesus Christ, through His death, rather than abolishing the moral law of God, established it
forever and proved its changeless character. Matthew 5:17,18. On the Cross He satisfied the demand of the
low, which is second death. Since He was sinless Himself, He was resurrected and obtained the right to
grant mercy to every repentant human being. God’s righteousness and God’s mercy were demonstrated on
the Cross. Psalm 85:10.
F. The ceremonial practices and symbols of the Jewish religion are illustrations of the death of
Jesus Christ. (Daily sacrifices of the lambs; serpent uplifted by Moses in the wilderness, etc. John 3:14, 15).
The Cross is the center of the gospel message revealed in the Old and New Testaments.
G. The Roman centurion, beholding the, dying Savior, exclaimed, “This was truly the Son of
God.”
H. The Cross of Jesus Christ was and always will be an offense to many people. Galatians 5:11.
On the other hand, it is the science and song of the, redeemed host throughout eternity. Paul rejoiced in the
Cross. Galatians 6:14.
I. It is tragic to behold a dying world too busy to-stop and contemplate the meaning of Calvary;
too preoccupied with material things to investigate spiritual matters; too critical and too skeptical to take a
step of, faith and accept Christ as Lord and Savior.
7. UNMASKING OF SATAN AND VINDICATION OF GOD’S CHARACTER AT THE CROSS

The Real Hallelujah Chorus. At the Cross, Satan was unmasked before the whole universe as the
killer of the Son of God. God on the other hand .was justified and revealed as the Author of self -sacrificing
love. The universe was regained forever. Revelation 5:11,12. Together with the angels they sing the
Hallelujah chorus. Revelation 5:13. Through the Cross, the Son of God brought unity and harmony into the
universe, and has made it possible for all who choose Him to live in His presence forever.
18. GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT

INTRODUCTION
God the Holy Spirit is equivalent in every respect to God the Father and God the Son. The Holy
Spirit is not energy or power, but a divine Person, having all the attributes of God; namely, omnipotence,
omnipresence, omniscience. He has been existing with God the Father and God the Son from eternity. He
may be regarded as the most mysterious of the three Persons.
1. OFFICE AND WORK OF HOLY SPIRIT IN THE LIFE OF CHRIST

Description of His Personality
1. He proceeds from the Father. John 15:26.
2. He was present at the creation. Genesis 1:2.
3. Jesus Christ, the son of man, was conceived by Him. Luke 1:35.
4. He was present at the baptism of Jesus Christ. Matthew 3:16, 17.
5. Jesus Christ was anointed and led by Him. Luke 4:18.
6. Jesus Christ offered Himself to the Father through the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 9:14.
7. Jesus Christ was raised by Him. 1 Peter 3:18.
8. He is Jesus Christ’s Vicar on earth. John 14:16, 17; John 16:7.
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2. OFFICE AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR THE REDEEMED

Description of His work.
1. He comforts and teaches us. John 14:16, 26.

2. He actually lives in surrendered persons and possesses them. John 14:17; Colossians 1:27.
3. He has the power to recreate; He brings about the new birth. John 1:12, 13; John 15.
4. He makes intercession for us. Romans 8:26.
5. He gives us the power to live the Christian life and enables us to be witnesses. Acts 1:8.
6. He is always the Master, while we are His servants; He is leading us. Romans 8:14.
7. He seals redeemed men for salvation. Ephesians 4:30.
3. OFFICE AND WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR THE UNREDEEMED

Description of this work.
1. He strives with men, wooing them to God. Genesis 6:1
2. He reproves the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. John 16:8-11.
4. THE HOLY SPIRIT’S PART IN OUR PERSONAL SALVATION

The holy Spirit lives in the new believer and accomplishes his personal redemption, provided the person is
utterly surrendered to Him. Without the Holy Spirit no one can be saved. Romans 8:9; 2 Corinthians 3:18.
5. THE DEADLY SIN THAT LEADS TO DEATH

(The Unforgivable Sin)
A. A continuous opposition or indifference toward the Holy Spirit will lead to the unpardonable
sin. This can happen to a believing as well as to an unbelieving person. This is done when he rejects light
from the Holy Spirit; when he clings to his old nature and refuses to be transformed by the Holy Spirit;
when he retains sinful habits rather than give them up. Matthew 12:30-32; Psalm 55:19. Presumptuous and
willful sinning. Hebrews 10:26, 29, 30. (Examples: Esau, King Saul, Judas-Hebrews 12:16, 17.)
B. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in many different ways. He tries to woo our minds and hearts to
Jesus Christ. He speaks to our conscience many times during our life. If we allow Him, He will mould our
minds and characters and transform them into the likeness of Jesus Christ.
C. If you believe in Jesus, you may ask Him to send the Holy Spirit to take possession of you. You
may pray a simple prayer like this:
Dear lord, help me to surrender myself to thee entirely today. Please take me in thy full
possession, search my heart and slay every sinful desire in me. Remove from my mind every wrong
thought, cleanse my heart and make it thy temple. Live in me Thy Divine Life, 0 Lord Jesus Christ.
Sanctify me daily, transform my character, and turn me into thy likeness. In Jesus name. Amen.
19. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

INTRODUCTION
God is closest to us when we are surrounded by trouble, loneliness, and darkness. When Jacob was
running away from his brother Esau, he met God in the wilderness. God revealed Himself to Jacob in a
dream. In it Jacob saw a ladder reaching to heaven. At the top of the stairway stood God. The ladder
connecting heaven with earth symbolized Jesus Christ who alone connects fallen mankind with the throne
of God. Through victory in Jesus Christ, Jacob became Israel (overcomer). A deceiver was turned into a
victor.
1. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN IS COMPOSED OF FIVE STEPS:

A. Call
Conversion
Justification
Sanctification
Glorification
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B. Every soul must ascend this stairway. There are no shortcuts. Every step symbolizes a different
stage of spiritual development and growth. God and man must go together through this experience,
cooperating with one another. It requires the full trust and obedience of man. The task is enormous since
the rebellious, morally ruined man must be recreated in the image of Jesus Christ. He must be made into a
new creation, morally clean, free from a sinful nature, and made fit for the holy presence of God and
angels.
2. THE CALL-Romans 8:29-30a.

A. Everyone is called. We are all invited to enter heaven. 1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 1:9. God has not
predestined some persons to be saved, and some to be lost. But He did predestinate the conditions under
which a sinner is to be saved. All who accept His conditions will be saved. Ephesians 1:4, 5.
1. Although Jesus Christ died for all humanity, only those who individually receive Him and His teaching
will be saved. Matthew 22:14.
2. “I came to call sinners to repentance.” “Come and follow me.” If a soul is tarrying, he is not fit for the
kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 9:13; Luke 9:61, 62.
B. God is calling every man, but in different ways: through the reading of the Holy Scriptures,
through His providence, through wonderful experiences and through tragic experiences, through the voice
of conscience, etc. In these and other ways the Holy Spirit speaks, woos, appeals to us. It is fatal to resist
this call, but it is a blessing to follow it. Revelation 19:9; Matthew 22:2-4; Matthew 218, 9; Luke 14:22-24.
What happens to those who reject the call of God? Proverbs 1:24-28. What is the result of answering it?
Matthew 19:27-29.
C. Everyone who loves truth listens to the voice of Jesus. John 18:37. The chosen of God are those
who voluntarily follow Him. 2 Peter 1:10.
3. CONVERSION AND NEW BIRTH

A. Conversion. Jesus Christ calls sinners to repentance. Mark 1:15. Conversion implies a drastic
change of life. It happens when a person, who has been living independently of God, turns to Him and
walks with Him. The decision to abandon sin and to seek God and His forgiveness is for man to make. John
15:5. Conversion and new birth are the two sides of one and the same experience. Conversion is man’s
side, while the new birth is God’s side.
1. In the Old Testament people were also called to repentance. Conversion was as essential to salvation as
in the New Testament!
A nation 2 Chronicles 7:14.
An Individual Ezekiel 18:23, 31, 32.
A prayer of David Psalms 51:11, 12, 17.
2. The Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples called people to repentance. Acts 17:30. Luke 11:4, 5. The
publican asked for mercy. Luke 18:11-14. Zaccheus, the materialist, experienced a complete change in his
life. Luke 19:5-10. The prodigal son resolved to ask his father for forgiveness. Luke 15:17-19.
3. Conversion does not simply involve good resolutions but requires their faithful execution. Sin abounds in
and around us, but the grace of God is infinitely greater than sin. Therefore, be of good courage and bring
forth good fruit. Matthew 18:10.
B. The New Birth

1. It is the Holy Spirit who woos sinners to Christ. When, after hearing the message of salvation, the sinner
draws close to the cross of Jesus Christ, asking forgiveness for his sins, the Holy Spirit performs a miracle
in this person. He recreates him, which is a powerful and drastic change, such as when a substance is
changed into another through transmutation. John 15:7. He receives the spirit of Christ as a gift. John
1:12,13. King David’s greatest desire was to receive this gift. Psalm 51:2, 10-12.
Such a man becomes a new creation. The old, Adamic nature has been subdued ‘by the Holy Spirit
and the mind, heart, and body of that person are now in control of Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit. He
has indeed become a new man as if he had been born a second time. 2 Corinthians 5:17.
4. JUSTIFICATION-Romans 8:29,30.
A. If, as in the above example, a man has been converted at the age of 30, Jesus Christ forgives
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him every sin committed in the past. (Sin is transgression of the moral law and the penalty is second death.)
B. In order to clarify the meaning of justification, we will use the following example: Suppose a
dirty vagabond calls at your house and you decide to help him. To start with, you offer him a bath. You
throw away his dirty clothes and give him a clean suit to wear. Although he is clean and has discarded his
rags, he cannot appear in society without a suit.
Jesus Christ does the same thing for you, spiritually speaking, when you repent of your sins. His
blood washes away your post sins. His death pays the penalty you deserve; but you still need a righteous
character to be able to stand before God. Jesus Christ clothes you with His righteousness. This represents
His sinless life, His just character. He imputes His own faultless life to the sinner. By this we are justified.
Now we can stand before the throne of God as though we had never sinned Ephesians 4:22-24.
As a result, a sinner is reconciled to God-and has peace in his soul. Romans 5:1. Justification is a
gift. Romans 5:18,19; Romans 8:33,34. The imputed righteousness received from Christ involves freedom
from our past sins. It is the beginning of a new life in Christ.
5. SANCTIFICATION
A. Although the sinner has been forgiven and has received the righteousness of Jesus Christ, he
continues to live in his old body. Although his old, Adamic nature has died, it has the ability of becoming
alive again at any time. As a matter of fact, it will become alive again unless we avail ourselves of the
power of the Holy Spirit given to us at the time of our conversion.
Jesus Christ makes available to us at the time at conversion a power infinitely greater than that of
Satan, to prevent us from failing into our former sins and reverting to our old life. Romans 8:37. If we abide
in Jesus Christ and trust in Him, He will give us the victory over all temptations and sinful desires. 1
Corinthians 15:31. We must be willing to die daily to our old nature (ego) in order to enable Him to give us
the victory. Romans 6:2.
Only if we deny ourselves daily can the Holy Spirit take us in complete possession. Only then are
we one (unit) with Jesus Christ. This is the meaning of Christ’s words, “You in me and I in you.” John
15:4,16; Romans 6.11; Romans 8:9; 1 John 4:4, 12. God the Holy Spirit is actually living in our frame.
Galatians 2:20.
B. The converted and justified sinner can still fall into sin but it is usually done unintentionally. He
immediately repents again and asks Christ for forgiveness. Proverbs 24:16. Justification is the imputed
righteousness of Jesus Christ, while sanctification is His imparted righteousness. The lord lives and works
in us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ imparts to us gradually His own nature.
C. Jesus Christ paid the price of redemption for all mankind on the Cross, but only those receive
eternal life who individually have received Jesus Christ and are led by the Holy Spirit. Based on your faith
and obedience to the Holy Spirit, He works out in you your personal salvation. He applies Christ’s
atonement to your life. Romans 8:1,4. The work of the Holy Spirit in you is a process lasting a lifetime. It is
called sanctification. 2 Peter 1:3,4; 1 Peter 1:14-16.
6. GLORIFICATION-Romans 8:30.
Glorification means release from the punishment of sin (second death), and entrance into the
presence of God. At this point the redeemed person receives a new and immortal body, resembling the
body of our lord Jesus Christ. This event will occur at Christ’s second coming. Philippians 3:20,21. 1 John
3:2. This glorious experience is described in 1 Corinthians 15:40, 44 and 48-53, Revelation 21:4,5.
7. SUMMARY OF STEPS
A. This covers the five steps of the stairway to heaven. Every individual’s conversion and
development is different, varying in type, length, and intensity, in accordance with is disposition and nature
as the Providence of God sees fit. Jacob, for example, had to go through a long, drawn out struggle before
he was fully converted. Paul, on the other hand, experienced a sudden conversion. The criminal dying on
the cross beside Jesus Christ went through this amazing experience in a few hours. The story of Peter
shows us that a Christian can fall into great sin and recover with the help of Jesus Christ.
B. Whatever our experience is, it is certain that we only reach the final step, glorification, when we
surrender our whole life to Jesus Christ. Only He can lead us from one successive step to another. Make
Him your guide.
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20. THE WAY OF SALVATION

INTRODUCTION
Through sin man has become morally ruined. The Bible says: “Who can bring a clean thing out of
an unclean thing?” Man’s sinful nature makes him a rebel against God, and he is unable to live without sin.
left alone, he is lost forever. The Word of God describes our natural condition and disposition in clear
terms: “Not one is righteous.” Romans 3:10-12. “By one man is sin entered into the world, and death
through sin.” Romans 5:12. “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” Romans 8:6-8. I am carnal . . . what I
hate, that do I” Romans 7.14, 15. “For I know that in me dwells no good thing.” Romans 7:18-23. A terrible
war is waged in the soul of every man who loves God. “The wages of sin is death.” Romans 6:23a. (Second
death, or destruction). “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 15:50.
1. WHO CAN BE SAVED AND LIVE FOREVER WITH GOD IN HEAVEN?

A. The sinner who by the grace of God obtains perfect righteousness through His Son Jesus Christ.
B. The man who chooses to love and obey God.
C. The man who is willing to have his character transformed by the indwelling Christ to conform to the
likeness of God.
D. Sinless behavior is not sufficient; we need Christ’s perfect righteousness.
E. “He that walks uprightly, and works righteousness and speaks the truth in His heart.” Psalm 15:1-5. But
no man by nature possesses such righteousness. “O, wretched man that I am.” Romans 7:24.
2. THIS RIGHTEOUSNESS OBTAINED THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

A. “So then they which be of faith (in Jesus Christ) are blessed.” Galatians 3:7-12. “To him that
works not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Romans
4:1-5.
B. Justification is a mysterious spiritual process by which God cleanses and justifies every sinner
who comes to Him. God gives him the life, the character and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The
justified man stands before God as if he had never sinned because, judicially speaking, the sinless life, or
righteousness, of Jesus Christ is attributed to the sinner. This is the only way a man con be saved.
1. Suppose a good and noble man committed only one sin in his lifetime. All his goodness, even if he lived
for a thousand years, could not pay for this one sin he committed. He would have to die for it.
2. No other man’s righteousness, nor an angel’s righteousness, would suffice to wipe away this one sin.
3. Only Christ who created him has the authority and the power to pay the price of his sin, which is the
second death. (eternal separation from God).
“That He (Jesus) by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” Hebrews 19, 10. Christ became
partaker of flesh and blood that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the
devil. Hebrews 2.14, 15.
3. WHAT HAS GOD DONE?

A. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in
Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. “For the Son of man is come to seek and to
save that which was lost.” Luke 19:10. “The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to
everyone who believes and therein is the righteousness of God revealed.” Romans 1:16,17. Whom God put
forward as an expiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness. It was
to prove that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies him who has faith in Jesus. Romans 3:24-26.
B. The forgiveness of sin is offered to us freely. It costs us nothing, but it cost God the life of His
Son to secure the right to give it to us. “Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor.” 2
Corinthians 8:9. He became accursed for us “that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles
through Jesus Christ.” Galatians 3:13, 14.
C. The mercies of God are gifts: Romans 5:17, 18, 20. “Shall He not with Him also freely give us
all things?” Romans 8:32. It was on this point that the Jewish nation stumbled. Romans 9:30-32; Romans
10:2, 3. Jesus Christ died in order to obtain the right to appropriate His life and Hit righteousness to every
man. All who are willing to give up their own lives and accept the new life of Jesus Christ as a gift of God
are saved. “Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Romans 5:1. True faith produces confidence and assurance.
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D. He creates a new man in Christ.

1. When a human being surrenders himself (mind, heart and will) to God, the Holy Spirit possesses and
lives in his soul. The result is a mysterious union with God whereby man becomes a new individual. His
old nature dies. To be “in Christ” means literally to have the life of God in you.
2. Death of the old man - resurrection of the new man. Romans 6:4-6. Obedience. Romans 6:16. Eternal life
is a gift of God. Romans 6:23b. I died to self; Christ now lives in me. Galatians 2:20.
4. THE NEW WAY OF LIFE

A. The redeemed, or justified person has become a spiritual being, although he continues to live in
a weak body. He is not carnal any longer. He follows the directions of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:1. The
Holy Spirit control and guides his life. He molds the person’s character.
B. Such a man may still sin, but essentially he abhors sin and all falsehood. He does not love sin
any longer. He does not sin deliberately since it is no more his nature to sin. He will be more and more
freed from the power of sin by the Holy Spirit. When he fails it is usually because he was careless, off his
guard. By divine power he becomes a partaker of the divine nature of God. 2 Peter 1:3, 4.
C. On the day of judgment it will not be your old sinful life and nature that will be weighed in the
balance but the sinless, spotless, and righteous life of Jesus Christ which is imputed to you. It will be
attributed to you since it became yours by faith. You will have the joy of standing before the heavenly
tribunal covered with the pure life of Jesus Christ as though you had never committed a sin.
D. Our lord Jesus Christ died that He might have the privilege of giving you this great gift. There
is no other Savior beside Him in the world. Knowledge of Him and intimate communication with Him
leads to life on the highest level. It means salvation for spirit, body, and soul.
E. “He that has the Son has life; he that has not the Son of God has not life.” 1 John 5:12.
21. THE CABLE OF FAITH

INTRODUCTION
Air is the animating element man needs for survival. The diver descending to the bottom of the sea
depends on air pumped to him from the surface through an air hose. If the hose breaks, it means death to
the diver. The water surrounding him is not the natural element in which to live; on the contrary, it will
suffocate him. In a similar manner a converted person who has been born anew by the Holy Spirit (John
3:5) does, in a sense, begin to live in an unnatural element; namely, the sin infested world which threatens
his survival. (John 17:15, 16). He can only survive if spiritual life is supplied to him daily by God. If the
connection with heaven is broken, the sin,-infested atmosphere of this world, like a strange element,
suffocates his soul.
1. CABLE OF FAITH CONNECTS THE BELIEVER WITH GOD

A. We can compare this connection with heaven to a telephone cable crossing the Atlantic Ocean
and containing a large number of wires. When that cable is broken the connection between the two
continents is severed. The same is true in the case of the believer whose intimate connection with heaven is
severed when the cable of faith is broken. All the gifts of God are conveyed to our souls through a spiritual
cable. This cable is FAITH. Without faith we cannot receive the gifts of God.
B. What are some of God’s great gifts?

1. Jesus Christ. John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 9:15.
2. The Holy Spirit. Acts 8:19, 20.
3. Eternal life. Romans 6:23.
4. Mercy and Righteousness. Romans 5:15-17.
5. Physical Welfare and Fitness. Ecclesiastes 3:13.
C. God lavishes on us a great variety of spiritual gifts.
1. We should desire spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 114, 11, 31.
2. The church in Corinth possessed all the gifts of God. 1 Corinthians 1:7.
3. The living faith which expresses itself in actions (James 2:17, 18) is the cable through which all the
gracious gifts of God are flowing into our souls. Again and again we find in Scripture this statement:
“through faith.”
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4. What is faith? Hebrews 11:1. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6.
D. How do we obtain faith?

1. Faith is awakened by the hearing of the Word of God, and the message that awakens it is the word of
Jesus Christ. Romans 10:17.
2. Let us examine ourselves whether we really believe in God and whether we live according to our faith. 2
Corinthians 13:5.
3. If we desire to have more faith and ask God for it, we will receive it. Matthew 7:7, 11.
4. God will give you faith in measureless quantities, provided you are willing to empty your hearts of
“self.” 1 Corinthians 12:4,11; John 3:34.
2. THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. Romans 1:17.

A. All is possible to those who believe. Mark 9:23.
1. Before the lord Jesus healed a sick person He usually asked him, “Do you believe that I can do this?”
After having received an affirmative answer, Jesus said, “According to your faith it shall be done to you.”
As a result the person was healed.
2. On one occasion Jesus said to a woman, “Your faith has saved you.” Faith was the cable which
connected this woman with God and His power.
3. Other examples: “Woman, great is your faith, your daughter shall be made whole.” Marveling over the
faith of the Roman centurion, Jesus said, “I have not found such faith in all of Israel.”
4. Often He reprimanded His disciples, saying “you have little faith.”
B. Many Christians fail today because their cable of faith is broken, and they find themselves cut off from
God’s power. Often we try to accomplish things by our own strength and attempt to conquer temptation and
discouragement by our own power. This is an impossible undertaking, and can lead only to failure. The
power to lead a victorious life is given to us by God only through a living and active faith in Him.
C. Just as a cable is made up of innumerable wires, so the cable of faith is composed of a vast number of
individual components, each one emanating from God:
Holy Spirit Galatians 3:14

Love Romans 5:5
Justification Romans 5:1
Peace John 14:27
Victory 1 Corinthians 15:57
Salvation Ephesians 2:8
Life of Christ Galatians 2:20
Character of Christ Galatians 5:22
Nature of Christ 2 Peter 1:4, 5.
Blood of Christ Romans 3:25
Promises Hebrews 6:12
Power of. Christ 1 Peter 1:5
Law of Faith Romans 3:27, 31.
Everything Romans 8:32
3. BELIEVE WHAT GOD HAS PROMISED

A. Appropriate His gifts through faith.
1. God never abandons a person who trusts Him. He would rather allow the firmament of heaven to
collapse than to break one of His promises. Your faith should not be based on pleasant feelings, emotions,
signs, etc., but on the promise, the word of the Creator.
2. We are to accept these gifts as a child accepts a gift from a parent. Skepticism and doubt short-circuit our
relations with God and darkness takes possession of our souls. Never ask God how and when He will fulfill
His promises. That is His prerogative. We are to believe and trust in Him and patiently wait for the
fulfillment.
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22. THE IMPUTED AND IMPARTED RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JESUS CHRIST

INTRODUCTION
Many people wonder how it is possible that God allows sinful men to enter heaven. It seems
impossible that people who have been sinners and children of wrath and rebellion, one day become spotless
and perfect in character as though they never had sinned. Is it realistic to think that we will be allowed to
come before the presence of God and His Holy angels in spite of our sinful record? This is indeed one of
the greatest mysteries and marvels of God. However, it con happen to you and me if we really so desire. All
are given this opportunity since God is not a respecter of persons.
1. HOW GOD TOTALLY SAVES A SINNER

A. The low of God states that one unforgiven sin deserves second death. Remember the fall of man in
Eden. Romans 6:23a. It is not sufficient to be sinless in order to be admitted to heaven; man must also be
righteous. God has made it possible for man to become righteous through His Son Jesus Christ. Romans
3:23-26.
B. What is Jesus able to do for a sinner?
1. To help a man change his course of action.
2. To help him understand his sinful condition and to make him see his relationship to God in the right
light.
3. To lead him to repentance, confession and conversion.
4. To blot out all his past sins with one stroke through His shed blood on the cross.
5. To apply His death on the Cross (second death) to the sinner.
6. Christ attributes to the sinner His own righteous, pure life. The sinner gives up his unrighteous nature for
the spotless one of Jesus Christ.
7. Through the Holy Spirit, Christ empowers the sinner to resist Satan’s temptations.
8. He offers to keep the old nature dead and to nourish the life of the “new man” from day to day.
9. As long as the sinner abides in Christ, the lord will bring about spiritual growth in him. Through the
Holy Spirit this person is intimately attached to the Savior.
C. The Vagabond:
Picture a vagabond in rags, knocking at the door of your house asking for help. Graciously you
offer him the hospitality of your home. He takes a hot shower before dinner and you discard his old clothes.
Before he can appear at the dinner table he needs a new suit of clothes. This example illustrates the
necessity for the Christian to be clothed in the garments of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, without which
he cannot appear in the presence of God. Revelation 16:15. It shows that it is not sufficient to be cleansed
with the blood of Jesus Christ; it is not sufficient to be sinless. We must also be clothed with His
righteousness. By the grace of God, the converted sinner is given the “white garment,” which means the
righteous life of Jesus Christ. Revelation 19:8; Ephesians 5:27. In other words, we are saved both by the
death and the life of Jesus Christ. Romans *5:9, 10.
2. JUSTIFICATION (the blotting out of all our post sins)

A. The meaning of justification is that Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us.
1. It is a free gift. Romans 3:24; Romans 5:16, 18.
2. It is ours by faith. Philippians 19; Romans 4:5.
3. We receive it by the grace of God. Romans 11:6.
4. It was imputed to Abraham. Romans 4:20-22. It is imputed to us. Romans 4:23, 24.
B. Righteousness through Christ was announced by the Old Testament prophets: Isaiah 45:25; Isaiah 53:11;
Jeremiah 215, 6.
C. The blessings received through the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

1. Peace with God. Romans 5:1.
2. Knowledge of sin. Romans 3:20.
3. We do not attain this righteousness by our own efforts. Galatians 2:21. The Jews at the time of Christ
rejected this concept and thought that justification was attainable through the keeping of the law. Romans
9:31,32.
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4. We are shown the right relationship between faith and works. Romans 3:28, 31.
D. “The great exchange” through divine grace: 2 Corinthians 5:21.

1. The sins of the converted person pass over to Jesus Christ.
2. The righteousness of Jesus Christ passes over to the repentant sinner.
3. SANCTIFICATION
A. While justification is an act of God, sanctification is a process affecting the present and future
life of the convert. Sanctification means that Jesus Christ lives in the believer through the Holy Spirit and
imparts to him His own life, nature, and power. Galatians 2:20.
B. The power of God is infinitely greater than the power of Sin. Romans 5:20, 21; Romans
1:16,17; Romans 8:1-4.
C. The Holy Spirit transforms the nature of the believer into the likeness of Jesus Christ. 2
Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 2:13.
D. The believer dies daily to sin. 1 Corinthians 15:31. The believer partakes of the life of Christ
daily. John 6:55, 56, 63.
E. The fact that the believer was justified and has faith in Christ does not give him an excuse to
continue living in known sin. Romans 6:1,2; James 2:20,24.
F. Can a justified and sanctified man fall again into sin? The answer is “yes.” It is due to the
cunning temptations of Satan and the weakness of the flesh. We must also bear in mind that there are
differences between sins.
1. There are willful sins which are premeditated.
2. There are sins done in ignorance or carelessness. 1 John 16-10; 1 John 2:1, 2.
G. A redeemed and sanctified man is still a sinner but one who is saved and has been pardoned.
Through carelessness he can fall away from Christ. 1 John 1:8; 1 Timothy 1:15.
H. The unconverted man loves sin and himself, while the regenerated man hates his sinful nature
and shuns sin. When the believer fails into sin, he confesses his sin to the Lord in deep repentance. The
center of his life is Jesus Christ and not his ego. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.
4. CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS ATTRIBUTED TO THE REPENTANT SINNER

A. God did not forsake man because he sinned. When an apple is rotten we throw it away as
having lost its usefulness. Man deteriorated through sin and rebellion, but God did not discard him. Instead
He devised a way to save man, to reclaim him. All those who desire to be saved can avail themselves of His
mercy. Jesus Christ is the only Person through whom we can approach God the Father. He is All-in-All. 1
Corinthians 1:30; Colossians 3:10, 11; 1 John 12; Ephesians 3,19, 20.
B. During morning worship, an elderly lady said to her minister in tears, “The older I become, the
more and more sins do I find in me. When will I ever be righteous before God?” The minister answered, If
you live a thousand years you would say the same thing. You would find innumerable faults and sins in
your heart over which you would long to obtain victory. One of the greatest marvels of God is that we,
sinful as we all are, can become completely righteous by accepting the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Surrender your life to Christ right now today, and His righteousness will completely cover you. His life and
righteousness are attributed to you. Isn’t this the most superb gift of God? To make this indescribable gift
available to you, Jesus Christ had to die on Calvary.”
C. How is the life of a believer judged on the Day of Judgment? Although he may have attained a
high level of spiritual life and a degree of character purity because he allowed the Holy Spirit to work in
him during his lifetime, he still fails short of reaching the standard of God. No one attains that high
standard in this life. The righteousness he is lacking is imputed to him on that day by Jesus Christ. Through
his acceptance of Christ as his Savior and lord, he stands before God as if he had never sinned. Philippians
3:12-14; Revelation 14:5; 2 Peter 3:14.
D. The Pattern of the Plan of Salvation in the Shape of a Church Organ. (Christ is All in All)
23. THE REFORMED LIFE

INTRODUCTION
Our God is a God of health, happiness, joy and radiant life. All unhappiness, sickness, and death
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were brought into this world by Satan. Ezekiel 33:11. God is aware of the fact that in order to have a happy
nature we need a healthy constitution. God can heal and restore both our minds and our bodies. Psalm
103:2,3. 3 John 1:2. Much sickness in this world is due to sinful living. After healing a sick person Jesus
frequently said, “Go and sin no more.”
1. TRANSGRESSION OF LAW BRINGS SICKNESS AND UNHAPPINESS

A. Sin is the result of breaking the moral low of God. Illness is frequently the result of breaking
the physical laws of health. Satan is able to bring illness into man’s life, but he is also capable of healing. In
other words, not all healing comes from the divine source. The test of a healer is the Word of God. Isaiah
8:20. Today God heals the sick in the same miraculous manner as through the dramatic healing acts
performed by Jesus. The benefits of medical science are His gracious gifts to us.
B. If we continuously violate the laws of health we may forfeit both our happiness and our well-
being. Even if we repent of our sinful behavior and receive forgiveness from God our bodies may have to
suffer the consequences of our unhealthy habits for years to come.
C. It is a fatal mistake to assume that our bodies belong to us. They are the property of God. We
are only tenants. If we abuse His property we may be evicted to the cemetery. The Bible states that
whoever abuses his body will suffer destruction by God. 1 Corinthians 3:16,17. The Word of God throws
light on a most beautiful concept involving our bodies. It states that they are the living temples of the Holy
Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. God asks us to consecrate our living bodies to Him so that He may live in us.
Romans 12:1.
D. If our aim is to live a happy and healthy life, we must return to the principles of health given to
us by God for this purpose, which are fresh air, sunshine, adequate food, water, daily exercise, rest,
relaxation, peaceful and cheerful mind, and obedience to all the laws of the body.
2. GOD’S INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE USE OF HARMFUL FOODS AND BEVERAGES

A. While living in the Garden of Eden, Adorn and Eve were supplied by God with a diet of highest
quality; namely, fruit and grain and nuts. Genesis 1:29. The animals, on the other hand, were given grass
and vegetables as their food. Genesis 1:30. After man sinned God provided vegetables for him to eat.
Genesis 3:18.
B. After the flood, man was permitted to partake of the meat of certain animals. Genesis 9:3-5.
One of the reasons why God allowed this change in man’s diet was to prevent him from continuing to have
a life span of 800 or 900 years. The descendants of Ham and the Canaanites were morally and spiritually so
decadent that had they been allowed to live for such an extended period of time they would have brought
about total depravation of the human race. The eating of flesh resulted in a shorter life span (900-170-120-
80-40). But man’s diet was not originally so planned by God. Noah was aware of the fact that God had
always made a distinction between clean and unclean animals. He knew that some of them were forbidden
by God to be used as a source of food. Based on specific instructions from God, Noah took into the Ark
seven of the clean animals, while taking only two of the unclean animals.
C. Later on God gave through Moses clear instructions to mankind as to which animal was clean
and which animal was not fit for food. Leviticus 11:3-10. One of the reasons, for example, that the swine is
an unclean animal is the fact that its flesh contains the dangerous trichina worms. Isaiah 66:15-17.
D. Explanation of some difficult texts. We know that the Word of God never contradicts itself. We
con safely assume that what God labeled as unfit for food at the time of Moses still applies to us today.
1. 1 Timothy 4:13. These statements are made regarding Christians who know the truth concerning clean
and unclean food. It is obvious that a sincere Christian believer will not try to circumvent God’s
commandment regarding the eating of unclean foods by first saying a prayer over it. What God calls
unclean is not made clean through prayer.
2. Matthew 15:16-20. The Creator knows that microbes and viruses, although carried to the mouth by
unclean hands, pass through the body and are eliminated through the bowels. In this passage, however, He
is speaking not of physical food but of things contaminating the mind and heart of man. These are the
things that result in wickedness and degradation.
E. The use of narcotics, liquor, tobacco, etc. Translators of the Bible have used the word “wine”
without discriminating between the different types. The Word of God plainly makes a difference between
1. Unfermented grape juice, also called sweet wine (Nehemiah 8:10; 1 Timothy 5:23) and
2. The fermented alcoholic beverages (Proverbs 20:1, Proverbs 23:29-32; 1 Corinthians 6:10).
3. Also narcotic drugs and stimulants are unhealthful because they cause damage to the nervous system.
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They become habit-forming and give rise to abnormal passions. Deuteronomy 29:17-20. Jesus Christ
refused to partake of such products. Matthew 27:34.
3. A HEALTHY LIFE IS A STRONG WITNESS TO THE POWER OF JESUS CHRIST

A. We should avoid ostentation in dress and jewelry. 1 Timothy 2:9; 1 Peter 1:3-5.
B. Some cosmetics hinder the normal development of the complexion. Jeremiah 4:30.
C. The Holy Scriptures admonish us to keep our minds and hearts pure from all defilement.
Therefore, be careful not to corrupt your thinking with filthy literature, indecent shows, etc. Carefully select
the things to which you expose your mind and reject everything that is not in harmony with the Holy Spirit
within you. 1 Corinthians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 10:31; Philippians 4:8.
D. We are asked to be careful in our choice of friends and are encouraged to choose those who are
of the same mind as we are; namely, those who love and worship Jesus Christ. Christ wants to enter your
social life. Honor Him there, too. 1 Corinthians 15:33. Whenever you are in doubt as to what you should
say, read, watch, eat, or drink, ask yourself this question: What would Jesus do if He were in my place?
24. THE HOLIEST COVENANT ON EARTH

INTRODUCTION
The Holy Spirit is a gift of God. At the same time, all of God’s gifts come to us through the Holy
Spirit as the Vicar of Christ on earth. We obtain these gifts provided we believe in Him and surrender to
Him body and soul. Some of the gifts referred to are salvation, righteousness, repentance, forgiveness, the
nature and righteous life of Jesus, love, faith, spiritual understanding, and hope. All these are ours through
faith in God. 1 Corinthians 12:4, 11. Hebrews 11:1, 6.
Through the eyes of faith, we may look to the things that are unseen. 2 Corinthians 4:18.
1. CONVERSION AND NEW BIRTH ARE TWO SIDES OF THE SAME EXPERIENCE
A. Conversion. By this is meant a willing turning aside from sin and Satan, and grasping the
outstretched hand of God. This is the part we have to do. Luke 13:1-3; Matthew 12:8,10. Sinful man has no
way of changing his nature by his own efforts. He has no way of escaping from the power of sin. However,
when he realizes his desperate need for salvation from sin and cries to God for help, God will answer and
deliver him.
B. The New Birth. This is God’s part. He brings about the new birth of the individual, also called
regeneration. Only God has the creative power to change the nature of man. God is willing to create a new
heart and a new mind in us. A man who is changed by God in this manner is capable of abhorring his own
sins, and is enabled through the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit to live a life of obedience to God. This
transformation is so profound that our sinful desires will be no longer felt. 2 Corinthians 5:17; 2
Corinthians 4:6, 7; Ephesians 4:22-24.
2. THE HOLIEST COVENANT ON EARTH

A. The man thus liberated makes a holy and everlasting covenant with the lord Jesus Christ. This
is a more sacred covenant than any other he can enter on earth because God Himself is his partner. Hebrews
8:8-10; John 3:5.
B. Born of Water and of the Spirit.
1. The meaning of “born of water” is that a man is willing to have his sinful nature crucified and buried by
God. Galatians 2:20. “I am crucified with Christ.” (as Christ was crucified and buried)
2. “Born of the Spirit,” on the other hand, means that God resurrects that man into a new life by the Holy
Spirit. The task of the Holy Spirit who now resides in this man is to give him a new nature, the nature and
character of Jesus Christ.
3. It goes without saying that our part has to be done with complete consecration and a pure motive. If not,
baptism becomes a meaningless ceremony. The best wedding cannot bring happiness if the bride does not
love her husband.
3. THE COMMANDMENT AND THE MANNER OF BAPTISM

A. Our lord Jesus Christ gave us the example in His own baptism. Matthew 3:13-16. Jesus Christ,
after the ceremony of baptism came out of the water. Matthew 3:5.
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B. He commanded that all His followers should be baptized in the same manner. Matthew
28:19,20.
C. John the Baptist baptized where there was much water. John 3:23.
D. Philip and the Ethiopian minister of finance descended together into the water. Acts 8:36-39.
E. The Greek word “baptismos” means total *immersion.
4. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF IMMERSION

A. It commemorates the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Romans 6:33. It implies that the person who
is being immersed believes in the death, burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ on his behalf.
B. It expresses the *inner experience of the person being baptized: the aid nature has died, has been buried,
and with Christ has been resurrected to a new life. Romans 6:6-8.
C. Immersion is a symbol of the washing away of all our past sins. Acts 22:16.
5. PREPARATION FOR BAPTISM

A. It is essential that the person who is to be baptized should be acquainted with the plan of salvation, and
has counted the cost of following Jesus Christ. Matthew 28:19, 20.
B. He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Mark 16:16.
1. Repent and forsake your sins and be baptized. Acts 2:38.
2. Break away from the sinful influences in this world and consecrate your life to God. Romans 6:8,11,13.
C. The Holy Spirit unites all members of the church through baptism. 1 Corinthians 12:13. Jesus Christ is
the Head of the Church; the new member lives, grows and works through Him. Ephesians 4:15, 16.
D. The Holy Scriptures teach only one kind of baptism, and that is by the immersion of a person who is
fully aware of its meaning It is obvious that this is only possible if the person to be baptized has reached a
certain degree of maturity. Babies and little children cannot possibly have a clear understanding of its
meaning. Child baptism is therefore not grounded in Scripture.
E. IMPORTANT: Baptism in itself does not save a person. It only symbolizes the spiritual union with Jesus
Christ. He must be baptized with water and the Holy Spirit.
6. HOLY COMMUNION - Luke 22:19, 20.

A. The unleavened bread and unfermented wine used in the Holy Communion are the symbols of the
sinless body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord’s Supper symbolizes our spiritual union with
Christ and it looks back to His death and forward to His second appearing. 1 Corinthians 11.26.
B. Spiritual Preparation for the Lord’s Supper. Without proper spiritual preparation for the lord’s Supper
we might incur condemnation from the lord instead of blessing. Furthermore, we are to repent of our sins
and freely forgive all men for the sins committed against us. 1 Corinthians 11:27-29; John 13:4, 5, 13-17.
1. Foot washing preceding the Lord’s Supper is not only a symbol of self-humbling, but is also a memorial
of the humble life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Foot washing and the Lord’s Supper is a time of introspection, of being reconciled to any with whom we
may have had conflict.
3. We ought to have the same humble spirit as He had. Follow His example in all these things and your joy
will be full. John 13:17.
25. THE STEWARD OF GOD’S TREASURE

INTRODUCTION
The man of God says, “What I am and what I own belongs to God. I am only His steward.” The
majority of us, however, do not embrace this philosophy of life. We do not wish to recognize our
stewardship. We consider ourselves the sole proprietors of our bodies and possessions. We do with them
whatever we please. Such a view has grave consequences. God expressly states that He is the proprietor of
all things and that we are only tenants and stewards. 1 Corinthians 4:1, 2. God expects interest from His
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investment in us and He is entitled to it.
1. EVERYTHING BELONGS TO GOD

A. The earth and its fullness. Psalm 24:1.
B. All the gold and silver in the world. Haggai 2:8.
C. The human race:
1. Because He created us. Psalm 100:1
2. Because He sustains us. Acts 17:25, 28.
3. Because He redeemed us. 1 Peter 1:18, 19.
2. ALL OUR PROPERTY BELONGS TO GOD

A. Jesus claims that one seventh of our time should reserved for Him. Exodus 20:13-10.
B. Jesus claims that the tenth part of our income belongs to Him. Leviticus 27:30, 32.
C. If we truly love Jesus Christ we will express it by making voluntary love offerings; in other
words, we will give more than He is asking for. Deuteronomy 16:16, 17.
D. Always remember that life itself and all of life’s gifts are emanating from God. Deuteronomy
8:17,18.
3. JESUS CHRIST CONFIRMED THE OLD TESTAMENT SYSTEM OF TITHING.

A. In a discussion with the Pharisees, He confirmed the payment of tithes. Matthew 23:23.
B. Abraham, the Father of all Believers, offered tithes to Melchizedek 500 years before the law
was given to Moses. Genesis 14:18-20.
C. Jesus Christ is a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Therefore the tithing system
applies to all mankind in all generations. Hebrews 6:20; Hebrews 7:8-10.
D. The ministers are supported by the tithe. Offerings are also given to send missionaries
throughout the world. 1 Corinthians 9:13, 14.
4. HOW DO WE GIVE OUR TITHE TO GOD?

A. The tithe is not meant to be distributed by us to the poor. Numbers 18:21, 26. It is meant to be
given to those who preach the gospel.
B. God asks us to tithe our entire income. Proverbs 3:9, 10. It is unfortunate when Christians
withhold from God the tenth part of their income and consider it too high a sacrifice to make. It is not to be
considered a sacrifice; for it is an obligation. This lack of understanding and dedication is responsible for
the poor financial condition of certain churches that cannot function properly on the income received from
voluntary offerings. They are obliged to us worldly methods, unworthy of their high calling, to earn the
necessary income to cover their operating expenses. While millions of people withhold the tithes from God,
they have no compunction in spending a much larger portion of their income on unnecessary luxuries.
C. As soon as Jacob left the house of his father he pledged his tithes to God. Genesis 28:20-22.
D. The system of tithing has proven to be the most equitable system for the support of the work of
God in the world. It gives both rich and poor an equal right and responsibility in spreading of the gospel. it
shows that in God’s eyes the contribution of the poor is as precious to Him as the contribution of the rich.
Read Christ’s remarks regarding the gift of the poor widow in Luke 21:3, 4. Tithing is one of the tests of
our faithfulness. Luke 16:10.
5. THE UNFAITHFULNESS OF ISRAEL

A. When tithes and offerings are withheld from God, we are robbing God. Malachi 18; 1 Corinthians 6:10.
B. Israel was cursed because of its unfaithfulness. Malachi 3:9.
C. The result of our faithfulness, on the other hand, means blessings from God. Ma1achi 3:10.
6. THERE IS A CONNECTION BETWEEN RELIGION AND MONEY.

A. Our relation to God greatly influences the way we manage our money. God and you are life
partners. Be faithful as He is faithful. Do not touch what belongs to God as did Adam in the Garden of
Eden. Your faith and character are continuously tested. Do not withhold from Him your tithe and the
seventh day of the, week. These are two ways by which you can demonstrate your love and faithfulness to
Him. One day Jesus will say to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou host been faithful
over a few things, I will make thee ruler over, many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Matthew
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25:21. Read Christ’s parable regarding the talents in Matthew 25:14-19, and 26-28.
B. Lay up treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is there will your heart be also. Matthew
6:20, 21.
26. SAVED TO SERVE

INTRODUCTION
Every true Christian is to be an ambassador of Jesus Christ. He is to do all that he can in bringing
truth, goodness and the love of his Lord to his fellow men. As the moon reflects the rays of the sun and
illumines our earth at night, in the same manner a true follower of Christ disburses the light of God. Jesus
said, I am the light of the world” in John 8:12, but He also said: “You are the light of the world. Let your
light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14, 16. We are to reflect Him.
1. THE EXAMPLE OF JESUS

A. Although the love of the lord Jesus Christ for His Father was supreme, His love for mankind
was so great that He willingly left the presence of His Father to lay down His life for us. He loved us with
utter selflessness. During His life-time on earth, He went about doing good and healing all that were
oppressed by the devil. The poorest and humblest were not afraid to approach Him. Love mercy, and
compassion for mankind were evident constantly. He was like a stream of water flowing through a desert
land with life bursting forth along its shores.
B. The love of Christ in us will create a desire to be saved ourselves. This is not self-love. Self
love is Satanic. The second great commandment says, “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.” Matthew
22:39. A true child of God always follows that which we speak of as the “golden rule” stated thus in the
Bible: “Therefore, all things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them.”
Matthew 7:12. When a person has been born anew by the Spirit of God, he does not live for himself any
longer, but lives for the glory of God and the service of man. He does all that is in his power to ease the
burdens of his fellow men-not by his own strength, but by the power of God.
C. In order to do goad, we must be good. Only good trees can bear good fruit. Only God can make
us good since there is no inherent goodness in us. Romans 7:18. Fruitless trees will eventually be destroyed.
Matthew 3:10; Luke 117-9.
2. THE MISSION OF JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS

A. Jesus Christ was not only to redeem mankind from sin, death, and Satan’s power, but also to
bring to us the blessings of health and healing. Luke 4: 18, 19; Acts 10:38.
B. Christ’s followers will manifest the same earnest desire in behalf of their fellow men. Acts
20:34, 35.
C. The manifestation of Christian love toward our neighbor will be in direct proportion to our love
for Christ. 1 John 4:20, 21.
D. The measure of our true greatness is accounted by God according to the way we serve our
fellow men. Matthew 20:26, 27. Christ become man’s servant and set an example of selfless love for us to
follow. Philippians 2: 6-8; Matthew 20:28.
E. When Jesus Christ healed the sick He also taught men not to sin against their own body.
Matthew 4:23,24; John 5:14. Full restoration of the sick will include the giving of counsel on how to
prevent recurrence of the illness. We are to teach others the art of healthful living. Psalms 103:3.
F. The follower of Christ will be alert at all times for opportunities to help the needy and destitute.
He is to manifest the same understanding for man’s need as did Christ in His ministry. Matthew 14:16-20;
1 John 3:17, 18; Isaiah 58:6-8.
G. Jesus Christ identified Himself closely with those who were poor in this world’s goods.
Matthew 25:37-40; James 4:17.
H. The motives of our sacrifices and offerings are our love for God and our fellowmen. 1
Corinthians 13:1-3.
I. Jesus Christ was no respecter of persons. He made no distinction between men. He associated
Himself with the rich and the poor, the socially prominent and the despised, the s “ inner and the righteous.
His attitudes indicated His belief in the brotherhood of man. Mark 12:37; Luke 7:34; Galatians 3:28; Acts
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10:34, 35.
3. CHRIST IN US.
A. Christ hated sin, but loved the sinner. He commands His followers to love one another. John
13:34,35. He also tells us to love our enemies. Matthew 5:43-45. The love of God is not a sentimental
quality. It is a strong working principle of life which is to abide in the Christian and flow forth from him to
all persons with whom he comes in contact.
B. The reason why it is so difficult to humble ourselves is because our basic sinful nature is in
opposition to the element of humility. Jesus said, “He that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” Matthew
23:12. He also said, “Take my yoke pan you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.” Matthew
11:29, and Peter wrote: “God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5:5. Jesus Christ
lived in accordance with this teaching. Just before His death He demonstrated how we should serve our
neighbor. He washed the feet of His disciples, even the feet of Judas who later betrayed Him. John 13:1,
12-17.
C. Spiritual maturity is developed all through our lifetime, and thus we renounce the glory and
pleasures of this world and devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the service of God and men. Moses and
Paul are two of many Bible examples. Hebrews 11:25, 26; Philippians 3:7, 8.
D. If we allow Christ to live in us, His love and compassion to man will flow out through us. Our
lives will then be as lights in the darkness, as the salt of the earth, as fountains of living waters in a dry
land. Matthew 5:13, 14, 16. The Lord Jesus Christ has promised to give us His power in order to help us to
live as His witnesses in all things.
27. LIVING VICTORIOUSLY UNTIL CHRIST RETURNS

INTRODUCTION
Bible students everywhere agree that the signs indicate that Jesus Christ will return soon to earth
as King and Judge. His appearance will be a pageant of unspeakable glory. Luke 21:27; Matthew 24:30, 31.
When He comes He will divide all people into two classes - the saved and the unsaved. Those who
are saved from destruction are those who conquered in the name of Jesus Christ. They are those who lived
by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is they who will hear Christ’s voice: “Come you blessed of my Father.”
Matthew 25:34.
1. VICTORY PROMISED TO ALL WHO OVERCOME SIN Revelation 3:5

A. Seven churches of the book of Revelation. Note the seven letters of Jesus Christ to the churches
contained in the book of Revelation. Each church mentioned falls into a different historic era. Every letter
ends with the same wonderful promise of victory for those who conquer in Christ’s name. Revelation 2:7,
11, 17, 26; Revelation 3:5, 12, 21.
B. There is Hope for the church of Laodicea. Laodicea, the church, of the last period before
Christ’s return, received this advice and promise: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. if any man hear
my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that
overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my
Father in his throne.” Revelation 3:20, 21. Can you grasp the implications of this breath-taking promise?
Do you realize that God is promising you to share His throne in heaven with you if you surrender your life
to Him now, and allow Him to conquer all evil in you? The power of Jesus Christ in your daily life can
overcome every sin to which you are enslaved, and give you full victory over it. Revelation 21:7.
C. Victory gained only through Jesus Christ. Only those men and women who have obtained this
victory in their lives in the name of Jesus Christ will stand on the “sea of glass” and sing the victorious
songs of Moses and the lamb. Revelation 15:2, 3.
2. THE REDEEMED HOST ARE ALL VICTORIOUS

A. How was victory achieved? How did this redeemed host succeed in conquering all evil in their
lives while living in this morally decadent period?
1. We are told to be spiritually united with Jesus Christ at all times through His Holy Spirit. We must be
ready every day for His return, which will be sudden and unexpected.
a. Be ready! When you least expect Him, He will appear. Matthew 24:42, 44. (RSV)
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b. In the parable of the ten virgins, notice that all ten waited for the bridegroom, but only five were
admitted into the bridal chamber. Five of them were careless. This means their hearts were not filled and
possessed by the Holy Spirit. As a result they were lost. Matthew 25:1-12.
c. The expression “Girding your loins” means to be ready for a journey. “To keep your lamps burning”
signifies that the Holy Spirit shines in your heart.
d. Our lord will arrive suddenly and expects His servants to be ready. Luke 12:35-38. The hope of Christ’s
imminent return is a strong incentive to be living in a state of preparedness. This preparation purifies soul,
spirit, and body. 1 John 12, 3.
2. Be Awake, Sober; Watch and Pray.

a. Since we are sons of light, we are not to be spiritually asleep. This means that we are to be always filled
with faith and love. 1 Thessalonians 5:4-10.
b. Be on our guard lest our hearts be over-burdened by the cares pertaining to the business of this life. That
day may come upon us ,Suddenly like a thief. Luke 21:34-36.
c. Be patient until the coming of the lord. Be patient until we receive the 1atter rain.” Strengthen your
hearts, for the coming of the Lord is very near. James 5:7-9.
3. Re robed in the white garments of Christ’s righteousness - be clad in the armor of God.
a. We are living in the time described in prophecy as the last hour of world history. Therefore, cast off the
works of darkness. Depart from all sin. Put on the armor of light. Romans 13:11, 12; Ephesians 6:11-13.
b. Jesus encourages us to buy refined gold from Him. This gold represents faith and love. He counsels us to
buy white garments, which signify His righteous life, and ointment for our eyes which points to the Holy
Spirit who opens our minds to the revelations of God. Revelation 3:18.
B. Victory is a Gift of God.

God’s new earth which will replace the present world will be inhabited by an unnumbered host of
redeemed people. Do you wish to be among them? Then ask Him to give you victory over all known and
unknown sins. Victory is a gift of God. We could never attempt to vanquish our sinful tendencies. Christ
obtained victory over Satan on the cross. Through Him alone are we made immune to Satan’s attacks. 1
Corinthians 15:57.
C. Paul is an example.
1. He was afflicted, perplexed by his own weakness, persecuted, but he never lost his faith. His inner nature
was renewed every day. He kept his eyes on Jesus Christ - on the unseen but eternal realities. 2 Corinthians
4: 8,9, 16-18.
2. Paul said, “When I am weak then the power of Christ is strong in me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. (RSV)
3. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ: in all our difficulties we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. Romans 8:35-39.
4. I fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, Jesus will award to me the crown of righteousness at His
appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7, 8. (RSV)
3. WE ARE LIVING NOW IN THE TIME OF THE END.

A Christians should be ready, and stay ready for His coming. The record shows that the greatest
part of prophecies contained in the Bible have been fulfilled in the appointed time and place predicted. Is it
not reasonable therefore to assume that the remaining predictions are bound to come true? According to the
signs accompanying the Lord’s return, we are now living in the time of the end. All those who know and
love Jesus Christ are ready for Him, and live in an atmosphere of great expectancy.
B. Sin and Wickedness abound in the World. Since we have this blessed hope, we should not be
discouraged by the events occurring today in the political scene. Sin and wickedness surround us. Hardly a
day goes by that the newspapers do not relate some shocking occurrence. It seems that all moral standards
are being abolished in this country.
1. In the face of such calamities, we must keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, and through Him resist all
temptations to follow the trend of the world.
2. The Holy Spirit protects and seals those who endure in this struggle. As a result we will stand approved
before the throne of God. The Bible tells us what manner of life we should lead. 2 Peter 3:11, 12.
C. This is a testing time. Hold on to your faith and apply the teachings of Christ in your daily
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lives. Remember that the lord is testing you now to determine whether you would be happy to live in
complete dependence upon Him in heaven. if you demonstrate in this life that Jesus Christ cannot have His
way with you in every respect, then it is quite certain that you would not enjoy living in His presence in
heaven. Do not allow the smallest sin to stand between you and your God, but ask Him to search your heart
and to cleanse you from all sin.
D. Carefully examine yourself. Guard your mind from infiltration by Satan through worldly
literature. Watch your conversation and allow the Holy Spirit to guide your tongue. Do not allow your
affections to be swamped by the things of this world. Keep your first love for Jesus Christ whole and pure.
Your whole being should long for His coming.
E. Govern your life by It is Written” The Scriptures teach us that a man may know all the facts of
Christ’s coming and yet not be ready for Him. Sin is the one factor that con separate us from our eternal
home. Live entirely for Christ and allow His principles to rule your life. Remember these words in 1 Peter
4:17, 18; Revelation 7:14.
F. The Climax of the Ages. Presently Christ is summoning His people, asking them to prepare
themselves for His coming. All who love Him joyfully respond to His summons. Isaiah 25:9; Isaiah 26:8, 9.
When Christ and the redeemed host of people meet, it will be an experience of indescribable joy and glory.
2 Thessalonians 1:10.
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REASONS FOR OUR FAITH

A Discussion of Questions Vital to the Proper Understanding and

REVIEW AND HERALD PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

B. Seventh-day Adventist History

C. The Second Advent

D. The Threefold Message in Historical Perspective

E. The Law and the Sabbath

G. The Nature of Man

H. Church and State

I. Apostasy and Offshoots

J. The Everlasting Gospel

B. THE GREATNESS OF GOD

C. THE FACT OF SIN

D. THE CENTRALITY OF THE CROSS

E. THE CHRISTIAN WALK

From the Author To the Reader of This Book

Takoma Park, Washington, D.C.

1. The Christian Way to Contend for the Faith

2. Don’t Read Into Scripture What Is Not There

Seek to Bridge Gulf

Not Depth but Direction Questioned

Filling in Prophetic Details

Evil Effect of Prophetic Speculation

3. Seven Reasons for Joining the Advent Movement

Certainty in Spiritual Realm

The Question of Beginnings

A True Moral Standard

Certainty Beyond the Grave

Proper Care of the Body

The Meaning of the Times

4. The Origin of Adventists in the Setting of Bible Prophecy

Early Attempts at Dissociation

Direct outgrowth of Millerism.

Later Leaders Speak

Second Point Examined

Certain Prophecies Fulfilled

Third Point Examined

Mrs. White Defends the Millerites

fanaticism leveled against Miller and his associates:

Fourth Point Examined

Onward in Advancing Light

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS AND THE ADVENT AWAKENING IN OTHER LANDS.

5. Should Millerite Time Setting Cause Us Embarrassment?

The Crux of the Controversy

6. Those Charges of Fanatical Excesses in 1844

Eminent Church Historian Testifies

“Ascension Robes Are a Myth”

Comments in Historical Association Organ

University Professor Testifies

Baptist Organ Speaks

Lund Stories Dissipated

“Preposterous Yarns” Exposed

7. Charges of Fanaticism in the Years Following 1844

Six Facts to Remember

Singularly Free From Fanaticism

A Most Revealing Correspondence

“Trivial” Evidence Submitted

8. The 1844 Disappointment and the “Shut Door”

The Dilemma Indictment

9. The Second Advent Doctrine in the Creeds

The Apostles’ Creed